There are three levels of policy activity identified by Nakamura and Smallwood: 1. the formation of policy; 2. the implementation of policy; 3. the evaluation of the impact of policy. Panetics can be applied at each of these levels.The author suggests how.

For more than a century the idea of "scientific objectivity" has dominated our research–the notion that we can only know what can be materially defined and measured and that other kinds of knowledge are "subjective" and therefore to be discounted. Saunders believes the challenge is not to measure the amount of pain in a given situation, but to enhance the likelihood that policy-makers and the policy-influencing public will respond effectively to it.

He suggests several paths for the future work of the International Society for Panetics and adds that ISP should commission a few studies on why our government has been slow to respond to complex emergencies, such as the genocide in Rwanda.

An analysis of a decision by Vice President Dan Quayle to stretch out the period in which a law on engine noise reduction was to be implemented. It evaluates the panetic consequences for the population as whole compared with those for the industry beneficiaries

(Written in 1995) President George Herbert Walker Bush promised on his first day of office that he was going to make the United States of America a "kinder and gentler nation."

Did he succeed? No way of telling, for sure.

Why not? Because there was no direct method for calculating the net amount of suffering actually borne by all Americans, or by peoples elsewhere upon whom the country might have been inflicting suffering or bestowing benefits, or whether the trend figures were going up or down as a consequence of the government's decisions and actions.

The challenge is not all that difficult says Siu and he describes why.

If the objective of reform is--and should be--to reduce the suffering of the population, the efforts to reform government in Russia must be judged an abject failure from a panetic point of view.

Amos Sawyer, Interim President of Liberia 1990-1994

Foreword by William J. Lanouette

In November 2001, on the 10th anniversary of the Siu Lecture and Symposium sponsored by the International Society for Panetics, the Society decided to address the challenges of “international humanitarian intervention” -- the use of military force to halt genocide, ethnic cleansing or other inflictions of egregious suffering. On numerous occasions, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has commented that “despite all the difficulties of putting it into practice…humankind today is less willing than in the past to tolerate suffering in its midst, and more willing to do something about it.”

But what and where and how and when and by whom?

In 2001, the International Society for Panetics decided to undertake an assessment of the Secretary General's proposals and how they might be implemented. There are as yet no clearly defined or universally agreed upon guidelines, procedures or mechanisms for international humanitarian interventions. In consequence, such interventions have almost all been undertaken haltingly, clumsily and frequently too late or -- most shamefully -- not at all, as in the case of Rwanda. Despite ample early warning signs that might enable us to ward off violent political and social eruptions, the political will for preventive or preemptive action appears not yet to exist.

When intervention has been undertaken, too often it has resorted to the use of the tools of warfare. Despite claims of surgical precision, bombs and embargoes often fall more heavily upon innocent populations than upon the very perpetrators of human suffering that intervention seeks to curb. There are those who argue that some of these interventions have caused more harm and suffering than they were intended to alleviate.

More than three hundred fifty years ago, the Peace of Westphalia implanted a principle that has guided world politics during subsequent centuries: nation states are sovereign and other states do not have the right to intervene in their internal affairs. During the founding of the United Nations this principle of non-intervention was reinforced because of the desire of post-colonial countries to curb outside interference in their own political life. The one exception to this proscription: the right of outsiders to intervene to protect international peace and tranquillity.

Yet UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is but the most prominent current spokesman for an alternative point of view gaining increasing international consensus: that state sovereignty is subsidiary to other provisions inserted into the UN Charter intended to protect individuals from egregious inflictions of suffering. Turning to the text of some of Kofi Annan's speeches and papers on this matter, the Board of Governors of the International Society for Panetics framed some questions that it began to address in 2001:

• Why is it particularly critical at this time in history to re-think how the world community might organize itself to intervene in countries where people suffer from egregious inflictions? • What might be the guidelines for such decisions to intervene? What forms of intervention are most appropriate? What early warning signs of impending genocidal, ethnic, terrorist or criminal catastrophe should be acted upon so that the necessity for large-scale military intervention might be avoided? • When, and under what circumstances, should international humanitarian interventions take place? • By whom? • How do we make sure that such interventions do not do more harm than good? How should responsible parties be apprehended, called to account, and punished?

Introduction By Williams J. Lanouette

Good evening, ladies and gentleman, and welcome to the annual Ralph G.H. Siu Memorial Lecture sponsored by the International Society for Panetics.

“Panetics”—what kind of a word is that? Who has heard of panetics? Let me tell you a little bit about our Society. I think it fits perfectly with the themes of our distinguished speaker.

The International Society for Panetics is dedicated to the study and the development of ways to reduce the infliction of suffering by individuals, corporations, governments, professionals, social groups and any other institutions. Inspired by the work of the late Ralph G.H. Siu, a distinguished American science administrator, a hundred public officials, scientists, politicians, business leaders, scholars, artists, and writers from several countries came together with Dr. Siu to found the Society in 1991.

Dr. Siu wanted to combine the brilliance of Western science with the insights of Eastern philosophy. Panetics is in fact a word from the ancient Pali language, the language of the Buddha, meaning to inflict. So, that is why the unusual name, The International Society for Panetics.

Our speaker this evening is George Lakey, Director of Training for Change, an international center based in West Philadelphia. He will address “New Developments in Expressing Power Through Nonviolent Action.” A master of nonviolent action, George Lakey has conducted over 1,000 social change workshops on five continents. He has led nonviolent action projects in Vietnam and Puerto Rico, co-founded the Movement for a New Society, and taught peace studies at Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania. His sixth book is on the organizational development of grassroots and non-profit leadership, A Guide for Changing Times. He is probably best known for a manual for direct action, often called the “bible of direct action” by southern civil rights activists in the 1960’s.

His first arrest for civil disobedience – that’s the test, right – was in the civil rights movement of the early 1960’s. He trained United Mine Workers’ field staff for the successful Pittston coal strike, and in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, steel workers for their campaign to save their mill.

Internationally, George Lakey has recently led workshops in Croatia, Taiwan, Indonesia, and South Africa. In 1990, he taught student revolutionaries in a jungle university at a guerrilla encampment in Burma. In 1991, he trained Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka and Mohawks in Canada. He has led a series of workshops in the former Soviet Union, Thailand, and Cambodia. Closer to home, he has led workshops for Act Up, farm workers in Michigan, organization development consultants in New York City, African American neighborhood leaders in North Philadelphia, therapists in Colorado, and a tenant organization in the Bronx.

George Lakey has lived in West Philadelphia for four decades. He is an active Quaker and a grandfather of four. He received the Ashley Montague Peace Prize of the International Conference on Conflict Resolution and, my favorite, he received the National Giraffe Award for sticking his neck out for the common good. I present George Lakey.