Brookings: Topics - Social Policy

The Metropolitan Revolution : How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy

Jennifer Bradley and Bruce Katz — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2013 300pp.

Synopsis:

A revolution is stirring in America. Across the nation cities and metropolitan areas, and the networks of pragmatic leaders who govern them, are taking on the big issues that Washington won’t, or can’t, solve. They are reshaping our economy and fixing our broken political system.

The Metropolitan Revolution is a national movement, and the book describes how it is taking root in New York City, where efforts are under way to diversify the city’s vast economy; in Portland, Oregon, which is selling the “sustainability” solutions it has perfected to other cities around the world; in Northeast Ohio, where groups are using industrial-age skills to invent new twenty-first-century materials, tools, and processes; in Houston, where a modern settlement house helps immigrants climb the employment ladder; in Miami, where innovators are forging strong ties with Brazil and other nations; in Denver and Los Angeles, where leaders are breaking political barriers and building world-class metropolises; and in Boston and Detroit, where innovation districts are hatching ideas to power these economies for the next century.

Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley highlight these success stories and the people behind them in order to share lessons and catalyze action. This revolution is happening, and every community in the country can benefit.

The Tour:

The Metropolitan Revolution is going on the road. Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley will appear with metropolitan leaders across the country to discuss the book and local innovations underway in each place. The tour will include stops in Berkeley, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Washington, DC and more.

Register Now

Praise for The Metropolitan Revolution:

“The Metropolitan Revolution upends conventional wisdom and makes the case for how our cities and metros are leading American change and progress: they are transforming our national economy, political conversation, and collective destiny from the bottom up like never before. A must-read for anyone working toward a brighter future for our cities and our nation.”
—Mayor Cory Booker

“The Metropolitan Revolution builds on twenty years of studying metropolitan areas and hundreds of thousands of miles traveling to them around the globe, and the result is an exciting guide to the new world economy - urban, networked, innovative, collaborative, and driven by human potential.”
—Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Henry G. Cisneros

“Being mayor of Chicago is the best job I’ve ever had in public life. Katz and Bradley totally get it: the real power to change America lies in our cities and metros.”
—Mayor Rahm Emanuel

“With paralysis in Washington, public policy solutions will come from successful metropolitan regions, the clinical trials of our future. We are well into this journey, but never has it been explained with such insight and analysis until The Metropolitan Revolution.”
—Governor Jon Huntsman

“Just when ‘by the people, for the people’ seems like an anachronism, cities are giving it new meaning, fueled by twenty-first century technology. Every citizen needs to understand the metropolitan revolution. If we change cities, we change the country.”
—Jennifer Pahlka, Founder and Executive Director, Code for America

“This book captures the energy and excitement bubbling up in cities across America. This is ‘do it yourself’ urbanism of the highest order, and it is altering our landscape and our country.”
—Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner, New York City Department of Transportation

“Through real-world examples, The Metropolitan Revolution brings to life how America's cities and suburbs drive innovation to solve problems and seize opportunities. This book is a call to action beyond Washington, where metro leaders join together and simply get stuff done.”
—Mayor Scott Smith

“The Metropolitan Revolution is compelling reading on how our federal system is a powerful advantage in global competitiveness. This book is indispensable for business and elected leaders on realizing the economic potential of metropolitan areas for their citizens and the country.”
—Treasury Secretary, Robert E. Rubin

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jennifer Bradley

Bruce Katz

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Al Jazeera: The Most-Feared News Network

Shibley Telhami — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In this chapter from Shibley Telhami's new book, The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East, Telhami looks at the impact of Al Jazeera — the Middle East's largest news network — on the region's changing media landscape.

The Arab media explosion that recently has culminated in uprisings across the region springs from two interrelated sources: the growth of satellite television and the affordability of the receivers to the Arab masses, and the common language that Arabs share across state boundaries. Arabic unified a media market of some 350 million people in twenty-two countries and beyond.

Even before television, in the 1950s and 1960s there had been a dramatic increase in radio usage across the Arab world, especially after the rise of transistor and short-wave radios and their availability to the masses. The most striking and influential example was Sawt al-Arab Radio (“Voice of the Arabs”), sponsored by Egypt to spread Nasser’s Pan-Arabist message in the 1950s and 1960s. This station was so popular across the region that it presented real challenges to Nasser’s political opponents among the conservative Arab rulers in places like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, who attempted to jam the broadcasts.

Even Israel exploited the medium, especially after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when its Arabic radio began broadcasting programs specifically aimed at Egyptians. Knowing that Nasser had prohibited popular songs and even soccer games following the war in favor of martial music and a more somber focus on preparation for a new war, the Israelis made sure to air the Egyptians’ favorite songs as a way of luring listeners to their political perspective. Radio, of course, was relatively easy to jam and governments worked to block threatening broadcasts, but its ultimate undoing as a primary source of news came with television’s power

By the early 1990s television had become king of the media, and each state had made sure it had its own TV stations as a way of building local identity and loyalty and as a means of controlling the flow of information to the public. In those days, average Arabs in most countries received their news from national nightly news broadcasts entirely controlled by the government. Viewers had to endure lengthy coverage of routine events, such as visits of rulers to a hospital or a village, before they got to serious news, which was filtered to protect the rulers and advance their immediate interests.

This would all begin to change before the twentieth century was out, but although Al Jazeera has become synonymous with a new world of Arab media change, it was not the pioneer. In the 1980s and 1990s, Saudi Arabia and wealthy members of the Saudi royal family took the lead by purchasing popular Arabic newspapers and distributing them across the region, and hiring some of the region’s most prominent journalists. They understood that their broader Arab consumer needed more news and more diversity, and they allowed greater coverage of Arab and international issues—although critical coverage of Saudi Arabia and its royal family remained taboo. They also pioneered new satellite stations, beginning with one called MBC, in the early 1990s; these reached mostly the elites, as satellite technology was expensive at that time. The overall effect of this Saudi-sponsored media was to show the potential for a larger media market and also the potential threats other governments could face from transnational media. This simultaneous sense of inspiration and threat is likely what inspired the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, to start Al Jazeera (“Peninsula” in Arabic, referring to the Arabian Peninsula, of which both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are parts) in 1996.

Coming to power only a year earlier after a palace coup that replaced his father as emir, Al Thani and Qatar were often criticized by the media, including the Saudi-controlled transnational newspapers. The criticism was directed not only at the circumstances of his takeover but also at independent policies he pursued that were not fully in harmony with Saudi policy, including warming up to Israel and taking the lead in helping to normalize relations between Israel and Arab countries. The emir didn’t appear to have an especially progressive or a Pan-Arab agenda; still, by creating a station that reached not just the 250,000 Qatari citizens but as many as possible of the region’s 350 million Arabs, he hoped to take away viewership from stations critical of him and of Qatar. There was another service that Al Jazeera provided to Qatari rulers: As a welcome voice viewed by Arabs as reflecting their own aspirations, Al Jazeera helped protect the Qataris from intense criticism for being a pro-American emirate that hosted a base for American airplanes attacking Iraq in the unpopular 2003 Iraq war. And given the competition, Al Jazeera’s mission wasn’t that difficult.

Now, instead of having to view lengthy footage of the royal family meeting foreign guests, viewers were exposed to programming that most Arabs hungered for, from opposing opinions to more information on issues they cared deeply about as Arabs and Muslims. This included live footage of bloodshed in Israeli confrontations with the Palestinians—footage that Arab national television broadcasts limited so as not to awaken their public’s passion. Al Jazeera further broke taboos in the 1990s by reporting from the Israeli Knesset (parliament), showing open debates, including sharp criticism of the Israeli government by Arab members of the Knesset. One Arab nationalist member of the Knesset heavily covered by Al Jazeera, Azmy Bishara, later settled in Qatar and became a regular Al Jazeera commentator.

The result was a remarkable ascent: In just five years, by 2001, Al Jazeera had succeeded in becoming the most watched Arab television station for news, and within ten years more than three-quarters of Arabs identified Al Jazeera as being either their first or second choice for news. The station’s success also spawned competitors, from a transformed Abu Dhabi TV, to Al Arabiya, BBC Arabic, Iran’s Alalam, French and Russian Arabic stations, and many other country-based stations available on satellite.

With great success, though, came great criticism, at first from outside the Arab world and later from within it.

Mirroring, Not Leading, an Audience

In the years after 9/11, particularly in the aftermath of the Iraq war, many American commentators and politicians blamed the Arab media, especially Al Jazeera, for stoking Arab anger against American foreign policy. One of the ideas presented to address this perceived bias of the Arab media was to back an alternative American TV station, called Al Hurra, that would compete in the marketplace and offer a more “objective” view of events. Like other American attempts to win hearts and minds in the Arab world, this was an idea doomed to failure from the outset.

To be sure, there is room for outside views, whether from East or West, in the crowded Arabic media market. And there are plenty of models—from BBC to Russian and Iranian Arabic TV. But while one can make a strong case for having an American Arabic TV station such as Al Hurra TV, there never was a significant possibility that it would supplant or even seriously challenge Al Jazeera or other popular Arabic stations. It seems clear that the popular Arabic outlets succeeded because they reflected the hearts and minds of the region on core issues, not because they shaped them.

To test this thesis, I set out to study two somewhat unique cases that have small but diverse populations: Lebanon, and the Palestinian/Arab citizens of Israel.

In the case of Lebanon, the politically consequential diversity of the population—multiple Christian sects, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and Druze, with no single sect constituting a majority—provides some guidance to the self-selection involved in media viewership. Given that Lebanon had a competitive media market even in the days of government monopoly in other parts of the Arab world, the viewing habits of the various segments of its population are telling.

Polls I have conducted over the past decade make it clear that sectarian identity is a significant predictor of television news selection. In the 2011 poll, 52 percent of Shia Lebanese, for example, identified Al Manar TV of the Shiite group Hezbollah as their first choice for news, compared with only 4 percent of Sunnis and Druze and 1 percent of Christians. Similarly, 58 percent of Druze, 49 percent of Christians, and 46 percent of Sunnis identified the liberal Lebanese TV station LBC as their first choice, compared with only 15 percent of Shiites.

Al Jazeera’s viewership in Lebanon varied more than in other parts of the Arab world, particularly among Sunnis and Shiites as Lebanon became entangled in divisive internal politics after the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war. Before that war, viewership of Lebanese TV stations still broke down along sectarian lines, but Al Jazeera was identified by a good number of Lebanese as their first choice for news—in part because its reporting focused more on regional issues, particularly the Iraq war and its consequences. In 2006, for example, just prior to the Lebanon-Israel war, 43 percent of Lebanese Shiites, 33 percent of Sunnis, 25 percent of Druze, and 16 percent of Christians identified Al Jazeera as their first choice. By 2011, with Al Jazeera seen to be taking sides in favor of Sunnis, only 7 percent of Shiites identified it as their first choice for news.

The point is that while there are multiple reasons audiences view a particular station for news, the most critical factor is the extent to which a station reflects their views on issues that matter most to them and to their identity. When a station fails to do this, viewers look for alternatives.

In a more nuanced case, I conducted polls among Palestinian/Arab citizens of Israel. This segment of the Arab population exists in a democratic state with a relatively free media environment. Among this population the first language is Arabic, but most are also fluent in Hebrew. Arabs in Israel are thus able to watch media from both Arab and Israeli sources.

In the first two decades of Israel’s existence, Palestinian Israelis primarily listened to Arab radio stations for news, especially Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian stations. When they wanted to hear outside views, they typically listened to the BBC in Arabic, the French Radio Monte Carlo, or the Voice of America. Most of them were not yet fluent in Hebrew and thus did not closely follow Israeli TV and radio in significant numbers. The Israeli government had its own Arabic radio programming, which was listened to by some, but always with suspicion, given the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. More than any station, however, Arabs in Israel, like Arabs elsewhere, listened to Sawt al-Arab Radio, which reflected the views of Egypt and Gamal Abd Al-Nasser. So high was their trust in Nasser’s narrative that even when it became abundantly clear by the end of the 1967 war that Arab armies, including Egypt’s, had been badly defeated and that Israel was now occupying what had been Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian territories, some Arabs in Israel continued to believe that this was merely a trap set by Nasser.

It didn’t take long, though, for the narrative to begin shifting, and soon the credibility of Sawt al-Arab and other Arab media collapsed in response to ongoing and mounting evidence that the balance of power in the region rested overwhelmingly in Israel’s favor. By then more Arabs had become fluent in Hebrew, and while they saw Israel’s Arabic media as propagandistic, they saw the Hebrew media as more credible. I do not have polling data on the trends and viewership in the 1970s and 1980s, but anecdotal evidence suggests that more and more Arabs in Israel were getting their news from Hebrew sources and viewing Arab sources with suspicion.

But with the rise of the Pan-Arab media in the 1990s, viewership trends shifted yet again. As happened in much of the region, these stations, especially Al Jazeera, came to dominate the news media market in ways not witnessed before. Like Nasser’s Sawt al-Arab, Al Jazeera first and foremost catered to Arab hearts, but unlike Sawt al-Arab it provided more timely information and far more diversity of views.

In polling I conducted from 2009 to 2011, I sought to understand the trend in viewership among Israeli Arabs. Overall, roughly the same portion of Arab-Israelis as Arabs elsewhere in the Middle East—roughly half— identified Al Jazeera as their first choice for news. This finding has been relatively robust for the three years studied. At the same time, roughly one-quarter to one-third say Israeli TV is their first choice for news, but what is more interesting is the sectarian habits among Muslims who constitute more than 70 percent of Arabs in Israel. Only 17 percent of them identified Israeli TV as their first choice, while 53 percent identified Al Jazeera. In contrast, among the Druze—who, unlike other Arabs, are required to serve in the Israeli military—68 percent identified Israeli TV, while 15 percent identified Al Jazeera. Among Christians, 46 percent identified Israeli TV, while 31 percent identified Al Jazeera.

That identification is critical, for the selection of news media can also be seen in evidence from beyond the sectarian divide. In the 2010 poll, I broke down the Arab-Israeli population into two groups: those who had relatives who became refugees in 1948, and those who didn’t. Roughly 53 percent of those polled said they had relatives who were refugees. Of those, 60 percent identified Al Jazeera as their first choice for news, whereas 60 percent of those who didn’t have refugee relatives identified Israeli television as their first choice. This trend seemed to apply to all sects, again suggesting that preexisting and identity-defining attributes provide a good predictor of media selection.

The Power Behind the Media

Why does Al Jazeera continue to thrive despite increasing competition? And what fuels the expanding Arab media without realistic prospects of profit?

It is impossible to answer these questions without reference to the political aims of the sponsors and the aspirations of the consumers.

Al Jazeera has been successful largely because it understands the media market and its consumers. But it’s unlikely Al Jazeera would have succeeded without the billions of dollars in resources committed to it by the Qatari rulers over the past decade and a half. Viewers want a station that reflects their core identity and positions on central issues, but they also want timely and extensive information, which is expensive to provide.

Because Al Jazeera is well funded and doesn’t need to make a profit, it can provide extensive coverage where others have failed. In the 2008–2009 Gaza war, for example, no station anywhere in the world could match Al Jazeera’s coverage, with multiple reporters in Gaza itself, in Israel, in the West Bank, and in Egypt. In fact, no other television station had live coverage from Gaza or Israel during the war—an advantage that many stations, including American, tried to overcome in the November 2012 Gaza fighting by sending reporters to Gaza. And even though Al Jazeera is often accused of bias or of an ideological bent, it has been bold in ensuring presentation of multiple views, including presenting Israeli views dating back to the 1990s, when few other Arab stations dared do so, as well as airing Bin Laden tapes, Iranian views, and hosting or covering speeches and news conferences of American officials—including then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, American military commanders and spokesmen, and White House and State Department officials—during the Iraq war. So while Al Jazeera officials understood and catered to their audience, they also made sure they always aired views that challenged, sometimes even offended their audience.

There was also a price to be paid for Al Jazeera’s extensive coverage. Almost every government in the region was offended by Al Jazeera at some point, which resulted in significant pressures on the Qatar government. The United States accused Al Jazeera of incitement, and even China in 2012 was angered by Al Jazeera coverage, taking action against Al Jazeera English.

The question is, for what purpose does Qatar support Al Jazeera? What does Qatar gain?

One cannot completely rule out an ideological position of the emir. Al Thani once described himself to me as a “Nasserist,” or an admirer of the Pan-Arabist Gamal Abd al-Nasser, and Al Jazeera has indeed hosted Arab nationalists as regular commentators, including Egypt’s most prominent analyst, Muhammad Hassanein Heikal. But the network also hosts prominent Islamists, such as Sheikh Yousuf Al Qaradawi. Beyond any progressive or pan-Arab aspiration of the leadership, the strategy is simply seen to be in the long-term survival of the Qatari leadership and of the emirate itself.

To begin with, Qatar is a small, ultrawealthy state across the Gulf from Iran and neighboring a larger and more powerful fellow member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Saudi Arabia, with which it has not always had an easy relationship. Qatar considers the United States its primary strategic ally and hosts a major American base on its soil—not something popular in the Arab world. After the 1993 peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, Qatar was among the most forthcoming of Arab states to reach out to Israel. For that reason, and for its propensity to pursue a policy independent from Saudi Arabia, the dominant Saudi-owned media, as well as the Egyptian media, made Qatar their favorite target of criticism.

Al Jazeera became an instant counterweapon. First, by merely overtaking the Saudi and Egyptian media, it deflected criticism against the emirate and its leaders. Second, by providing a credible fresh news outlet that focused on Pan-Arab issues, it gained accolades that balanced the perception that it was a key American ally and friendly to Israel. Third, the success of Al Jazeera provided Qatar an instrument of leverage in dealing generally with its detractors. Better to be close to one’s rival when the rival is funding the primary media source in the Arab world.

But the Arab uprisings created both new opportunities and new challenges for Al Jazeera. On the one hand, Al Jazeera seemed on the right side of history: It was a central part of the information revolution that enabled the uprisings, and the uprisings themselves created new opportunities for coverage as Arabs everywhere tuned in to the story. On the other hand, the Arab uprisings seemed nearly unstoppable. Could they sweep the Arab world all the way to the doorsteps of the Gulf monarchies, including the Qatari rulers themselves?

Potentially facing common threats, Qatar found itself increasingly closer politically to its GCC partners, especially its senior partner Saudi Arabia, despite their sometimes uneasy, even competitive relations. In the coverage of the uprisings in Libya and Syria, Al Jazeera and the Saudi-funded Al Arabiya took closer positions than ever. On GCC partner Bahrain, where a Sunni monarchy ruled over a revolting Shiite majority, Al Jazeera covered the story but only to a limited degree. Al Jazeera’s explanation focused on the lack of access allowed by Bahraini authorities, but it was hard to miss the Qatari dilemma, and hard to convince critical commentators that politics were not an important consideration. But Al Jazeera’s biggest challenge in pleasing its audiences was in the Syrian uprisings, to which Al Jazeera dedicated significant resources and made them its priority story for months. While Arabs were overwhelmingly sympathetic with the Syrian people against the Assad regime, they were heavily divided on the wisdom of external intervention, which Al Jazeera seemed to favor, increasingly reflecting the foreign policy position of the Qatari government on this issue.

In stark contrast to 1996 when Qatar’s role in regional politics was relatively modest, by the time of the Arab uprisings, Qatar itself had become a significant player in the geopolitics of the region: from leading the arming and funding of Syrian rebels, mediating among Palestinian factions, funding the reconstruction in Lebanon after the 2006 war, and providing more aid to Egypt than anyone else after the revolution, to sending military support for the campaign against Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. To the extent that Arabs were divided on many of the issues in which Qatar was involved, both Al Jazeera and Qatar were bound to come under greater scrutiny.

This opened Al Jazeera up to some criticism from some former admirers on the left. In an article for the Lebanese newspaper Al Ahkbar titled “Al Jazeera’s Autumn: The Fall of an Empire,”2 columnist Pierre Abi Saab conveyed a feeling shared by a sizable minority who had previously admired Al Jazeera:

After the spread of satellites in the 1990s, Arabs came to know two types of liberation. The first is social . . . and the second was political, with Al Jazeera, which imposed itself in a short time, regionally and internationally. It is the story of Alice in Wonderland. In a small rich state [Qatar], an exciting new information experiment was started, and bet on difference, courage, and professionalism. From covering the story to carrying the flag of the opinion of the other, an alternative media took shape that viewers of official television could never imagine, from the [Atlantic] ocean to the Gulf.

This surprising innovation became a source for the Arab individual who hungered to uncover what was unsaid, and to follow the political debate, even if in passing. How is it possible for a political regime that differed little from those around it to create this progressive opening, which made many ignore the strange mix of political constituents for the TV station: from the Iraqi Baath to the liberalism that legitimized Israel during one period, to an Islamist current that swallowed those who opposed it? Who cares? Arabs now had their equivalent of CNN that looks from another angle at events, from the British-American war on Iraq to the Israeli assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, ending up in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions—history was taking shape live on Al Jazeera. Then the Qatari regime discovered a new hobby, and decided to become a sponsor of the Arab revolution. The station rolled over the Manama [Bahrain] spring like the Saudi tanks in order to “lead” the movement for change in Syria. Quickly professionalism began to slip, turning into intended deviations, then systematic lies, as is proven by documents and statements that have leaked out in recent weeks. Not that the Syrian regime is beyond tyranny and repression, but the media conversation took the revolt away from the people. On the rock of the Syrian tragedy, the kingdom of delusion was shattered. The station returned to its natural size. Suddenly viewers noticed that they are watching an official medium akin to those we see in all the authoritarian systems. It even surpasses the latter by virtue of its experience and reputation and claims of independence and objectivity. Today, scandals and resignations continue, leaving in the memory of the contemporary Arab media a deep wound named Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera Faces the Future

Despite such blistering criticism from within the Arab world, there is no evidence yet that Al Jazeera has lost significant viewership. On the one hand, its predilection (reflecting its funders) against the Syrian regime and its reserved coverage of Bahrain play well among the mostly Sunni Muslim population of the region. About 90 percent of Arabs also share Al Jazeera’s support for the rebels in Syria. But the push for international intervention in Syria is a source of deep division among Arabs, and this has opened Al Jazeera to criticism as the number of its media competitors has increased. Two other factors could play a role in determining Al Jazeera’s dominance: the emergence of alternative free media in newly democratizing countries, especially Egypt, and the increasing number of Arabs, especially among the young, who now get their news not from TV but from the Internet.

It is already clear that the open environments in Egypt and Tunisia have generated media that are far more attractive both to local audiences and to Arab audiences outside. In Egypt, whose population constitutes nearly one-quarter of the entire Arab world, there are many people with considerable journalistic talent and skill who have been stymied by the political control of state-supported media—indeed, so stymied that many of the most talented journalists left the country to work for the likes of Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and the BBC. The overthrow of Mubarak has brought far more diversity to the pages of newspapers and on television, both private and public networks, and a clear display of previously hidden talent. Popular television host Hafiz Mirazi, who had become a star first on Al Jazeera and later on Al Arabiya, has now returned to Egypt to host his own show on Egypt’s Dream TV. Muhammad Hassanein Heikal left Al Jazeera and joined Egypt’s private television station, CBC. Others will follow.

Egyptian media has the potential to eventually put pressure on other Pan-Arab TV stations. But the problem for any aspiring media competitor is not simply putting forth a credible product but also having the significant resources required to provide the kind of timely coverage of international and regional issues that Arab viewers now expect.

This alone is a potential barrier to objectivity. As yet there is simply not enough advertising revenue in the Arab world to sustain a competitive station, and the most substantial funds available for advertising come from governments and the elites around them, or from parties that do not want to alienate ruling elites, particularly in the Gulf region. Egypt’s new government, like its old, may want to invest heavily in state-sponsored media, but that will inevitably infringe on its freedom of expression, even in a more democratic Egypt. Local private stations that have proliferated may do well locally, but they will not have the resources to cover regional and international news competitively. And government regulators may try to limit the influence of private media, as they did in November 2012 by requiring Dream TV (a privately owned Egyptian station launched in 2001) to relocate its headquarters.

This resource dilemma for the Arab media means that even as the market grows more frustrated with existing stations like Al Jazeera, the scale of the enterprise dictates that there will be limited numbers of possible competitors and that those competitors will likely come with their own political baggage.

The same resource dilemma will ultimately affect Internet news as well, although to a lesser extent. Even now, as TV is losing news-market share to the Internet, all the successful TV stations have Internet sites, some of which are among the most popular sites in the Arab world, including Aljazeera.net. Inevitably, those sites that have the resources to provide the freshest information and to constantly update the news will likely do best in the marketplace. These emerging sites have to compete with websites with no geographic tie to the region, including popular news sites in the West and elsewhere— newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post; news websites such as Foreign Policy and the Huffington Post; TV sites such as CNN, the BBC, and Fox; and even comedy news icons like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert—but as my polls show, the majority of Arabs who use the Internet go principally to Arabic-language websites. And those with resources—and agendas—will strive to use their resources to influence the new market of information and ideas.

Editor's Note: The chapter also appeared on Salon.com on June 15, 2013.

Authors

Shibley Telhami

Publication: Basic Books

Image Source: © Eric Gaillard / Reuters

The End of Nostalgia : Mexico Confronts the Challenges of Global Competition

Diana Villiers Negroponte, ed. — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2013 160pp.

Editor Dr. Diana Villiers Negroponte recieved her JD from Georgetown University and practiced law specializing in international law and aviation matters. She played an active role with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Mexico during the negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement. She has assembled colleagues from both sides of the Rio Grande to examine the steps necessary for this proud nation to continue its momentum toward effective participation in a highly competitive world. With one foot on North America and the other in South America, it is a land in transition, from a one-party political system steeped in a colonial Spanish past toward a modern liberal democracy with open markets.

Excerpt:

In 1993, this author’s speech before an association of engineering companies in Guadalajara on the opportunities presented by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was greeted with significant criticism. The prospects of competitive trade implied a threat, and all the questions from the audience centered on how their businesses might survive. Twenty years later, the same companies have either gone out of business or adapted to the reality of international trade and global competition.

Metamorphosis is not easy; economic and political transformation, in particular, is hard. However, a proud trading people can find confidence in their heritage.

Today, Mexico has become a manufacturing center, with family-owned companies engaging in international trade and acquiring new technologies. Protectionist regulations are being dismantled, and young business leaders learn colloquial English, study at international business schools, and connect easily with foreigners. The young men and women whom I met over two years at a business summit held in the colonial city of Queretaro are not resigned to the new reality; instead, they seek to thrive in a competitive world. Their network is global, including colleagues encountered at school, at professional conferences, and on social media. They interact with foreigners with enthusiasm; they take on new international contracts with excitement.

But the old ways are hard to eradicate. The yearning for the predictability of government contracts, dependence on political patrons, and reliance on family ties have not disappeared. The authors of these chapters therefore agreed on the need to analyze and relate how the old Mexican system is changing. Metamorphosis is not easy; economic and political transformation, in particular, is hard. However, a proud trading people can find confidence in their heritage. Continued democratization and exposure to foreign competition is inevitable, but efforts to put the brakes on that process should not be ruled out. Therefore this volume is also about protest and conflict deep within the Mexican political economy.

* * *

The End of Nostalgia is available in both hardcover and eBook formats:

What's Inside

Piecing Together the Puzzle of Mexico’s Growth - What happened to the lusty 7% growth of the 1960s and 1970s?
Arturo Franco (Harvard University)
What might explain Mexico’s lack of competitiveness? A comprehensive review of the factors that —rigid labor markets, inadequate infrastructure and access to finance, size of the informal labor sector, high cost of energy, poor education system, and Chinese competition yields no easy answers.

Unlocking Mexico’s Political Gridlock - Is the Mexican legislature a "Siesta Congress?"
Arturo Franco (Harvard University)
In the last 20 years, Mexico has moved from a hegemonic party system under the PRI to a political equilibrium in which the three major political parties together account for 90 percent of the votes but none exceeds 42 percent. Since the election of a president from the PAN in 2000, no president has enjoyed a majority in congress, and coalitions must be formed to pass legislation

Energy Challenges for the Pena Nieto Administration – An examination of the serious decline in petroleum reserves in Mexico
Duncan Wood (Director of the Mexico Institute at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)
With corrupt practices, political interference and lack of accountability within PEMEX, the state owned petroleum company, opportunities for natural resources may be missed. Wood presents specific solutions to augment energy supplies and is extraordinarily optimistic about Mexico’s renewable energy potential.

Toward Regional Competitiveness Agenda: U.S.–Mexico Trade and Investments – How trade and investments are strategic drives of the U.S.-Mexico relationship
Christopher Wilson (Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)
Mexico is the United States’ second-largest export market, and the United States is Mexico’s largest export destination. However, the high growth rate between bilateral trade and investment has slowed due to the increasingly low cost of labor. Wilson posits how to spur trade and increase regional competitiveness through a Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The Priority of Education in Mexico – An examination of the quantity and quality of education in Mexico
Armando Chacon (Mexican Institute for Competitiveness)
Pena Nieto’s administration has yet to propose a budget that provides the funding needed for critical education reforms. Yet, significant value is added with respect to health, absorption of new technologies, and parenting skills for every additional year of schooling beyond sixth grade. Chacon examines and provides recommendations around improving education public policies.

Security Policy and the Crisis of Violence in Mexico - A critical assessment of current public security in Mexico
Eduardo Guerrero (Lantía Consultores)
Under Presidents Calderón and Peña Nieto, intentional homicides have diminished. But serious problems remain: the slow pace of reforming to criminal justice procedures, inadequate resources to reform the correction system, and inadequate domestic intelligence capabilities. Guerrero presents eight recommendations tailored to address the main sources and consequences of organized crime–related violence.

The Merida Initiative: A Mechanism for Bilateral Cooperation – Tracing the evolution of the Merida Initiative
Diana Villiers Negroponte (The Brookings Institution)
The Merida Initiative has evolved from a mechanism for the delivery of sophisticated, custom-made equipment to being a developer of programs that support training of law enforcement and gang prevention. Now, the Mexican government is reexamining its security policy, and U.S. priorities have also shifted. Negroponte asks if Merida has run its course, and if so, what mechanism should emerge to continue U.S. support and funding.

Mexico and the United States: Where Are We and Where Should We Be? – An expert view on the U.S.-Mexican bilateral relationship
Andres Rozental (Eminent Ambassador of Mexico)
Rozental demonstrates his deep knowledge of the U.S.-Mexican bilateral relationship, based on thirty years of negotiations with the U.S. government on maritime boundaries, nuclear proliferation, border issues, and immigration. Rozental recommends de-scrutinizing the bilateral agenda and prioritizing trade, investment, climate change, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Diana Villiers Negroponte

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Are Public Pensions Keeping Up with the Times?

Richard W. Johnson, Matthew M. Chingos and Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:56:00 -0400

Retirement plans for public employees in the United States face serious challenges: By their own calculations, states and localities are $900 billion short of the funds they need to set aside to pay for benefits they have already promised their employees, write the Urban Institute’s Richard W. Johnson and the Brookings Institution’s Matthew M. Chingos and Grover J. Whitehurst. But the problem is far more serious than currently imagined. What states accountants won’t admit, Chingos, Whitehurst and Johnson argue, is that the funding problem is much worse than states’ calculations show.

The underfunding problem has two key components: First, by their own calculations, most states are not contributing enough to keep up with the pension promises they are making to their employees. Second, states’ calculations seriously understate the extent of the funding problem. Most states assume that they will earn an average rate of return of 8 percent a year on their pension funds, a highly unlikely outcome in the current economic environment. This unrealistic assumption still produces a staggering unfunded liability: $0.9 trillion in 2011. Using a more reasonable assumption of a 5 percent return increases the unfunded liability to $2.7 trillion, these scholars estimate, which implies that the average state has only funded half of its pension promises. A funding gap of $2.7 trillion is more than four times the $607 billion in general outstanding debt on states’ books in 2012, Chingos, Whitehurst and Johnson report.

And many public employee pension systems also have design features that, even if the pensions are properly funded, compromise state and local governments’ ability to attract and retain the best employees, these writers assert. Young workers have little incentive to join the state’s workforce unless they plan to remain on the payroll for at least 25 years. Those who leave their jobs earlier forgo a significant portion of the retirement benefits from their employer. This is because most pension systems provide very steep rewards late in employees’ careers, penalizing those who work for the state for “only” 10 or 20 years. But there is also a problem at the other end of the career ladder, with pension systems punishing employees for staying too long past normal retirement age. This design feature makes it difficult for the state to retain experienced older workers, many of whom have specialized skills and deep institutional knowledge that are difficult to replace.

As debate swirls around how to properly fund public employee benefits, this report assesses the real challenges facing state and local government retirement plans and details the problems facing public employee pension systems across the country. Chingos, Whitehurst and Johnson’s comprehensive examination of the existing research on this topic highlights the many problems facing these pension plans, including the underfunding that threatens states’ economic futures and outdated design features that cripple states’ ability to recruit and retain the best public servants.

In the video below, Chingos and Johnson discuss the issues raised in the paper:

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The Future of Egypt’s Nongovernmental Organizations and Civil Society

H.A. Hellyer — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:21:00 -0400

Time and time again at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, a particular issue (among others, I hasten to add) has been raised for discussion. It has been all over the place— from private, off-record conversations in corridors, to a public plenary screened all over the world. The subject of non-governmental organisations in Egypt, their future, and the engagement of the Egyptian government on the issue, will likely energise discussions far beyond this forum – as it did before it.

It is not an inconsequential matter: it is a direly important one. Of course, many Americans are energised by the matter, owing to a recent court verdict handed down by an Egyptian court— leading to the convictions of all defendants in the now infamous ‘NGO Trial’. They received one of three penalties— five years in jail, two years in jail, and one year in jail (the last as a suspended sentence). The organizations involved included American NGOs, and American employees— hence why the American press has been focusing so much on this issue, naturally.

However, this issue is not about American NGOs— and that is why the issue of NGOs, and civil society more generally, is not going away. Among those convicted included many Egyptians— not simply Americans. But this issue goes far beyond this trial—a trial that the Egyptian government was not directly responsible for. The judge involved was not a government supporter— indeed, there are a number of reports that indicate he is aligned with elements opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood and current ruling party of the Freedom and Justice Party.

The heart of the issue is not this particular trial— a travesty of justice though it is. It is a travesty, of course, that the president of Egypt, Dr Mohammed Morsi, could easily correct through an entirely legal presidential reprieve— a course of action that would not be irrational or unjustified, considering how obviously politicised the trial was. Indeed, the government has regularly claimed that the judiciary rules less from a legal perspective, and more from a (negative) political one. Defending non-intervention in the legal process on the basis that the executive should consider carefully before engaging, is somewhat difficult to square with that in mind.

At the core of this entire discussion, nevertheless, is the future of civil society in Egypt – and in that regard, the current government has an incredibly important responsibility, as it is currently formulating and discussing a new draft NGO law. It is an NGO law that scores of NGOs have decried as worse than even Hosni Mubarak’s NGO regiment. Considering those same NGOs include individuals and organisations that defended the legitimate rights of the Muslim Brotherhood against a deeply repressive Mubarak regime in years gone by, their critiques ought to be taken exceedingly seriously.

There will be those that will consider that such discussions are premature, distracting, and fail to take account of the deeply structural problems that exist in Egypt at present. Such criticisms, however, fail to take into account that a strong civil society is, as Minister Amr Darrag said in our forum earlier today, a necessity. Civil society is critical to Egypt’s transitional process— because it does jobs that no one else has the time or inclination to do. If no American had been convicted in this NGO trial; if no American NGO was involved; indeed, if no foreign attention existed at all on this issue, the issue remains critical for the short-term, medium-term and long-term development of Egypt.

Egypt is a stronger country if civil society is stronger— and the attainment of the revolution’s goals are that closer to attainment if they are empowered, as opposed to being marginalised and restricted further. All sorts of international institutions, governments and groups may have their own particular interests in mind by supporting that— but in the end, the concern is a deeply, and intrinsically, Egyptian one. Because it will be Egypt, and Egyptians, that stand to lose— or gain— the most.

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H.A. Hellyer

Image Source: © Amr Dalsh / Reuters

Rios Montt Trial an Example of National, International Courts Working Together

Ted Piccone and Ashley Miller — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: This commentary first appeared on the Open Society Justice Initiative's website focusing on the trial of Efraín Ríos Montt and Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez.

The recent conclusion of the genocide trial against the former de facto leader of Guatemala, General José Efraín Ríos Montt, and the subsequent overturning of his conviction raises significant and enormously challenging questions about rule of law and politicization of the justice system in Guatemala. But beyond the domestic implications, the proceedings may renew the bitter debate underway about the wider Inter-American human rights system at this week’s Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly meeting, aptly held in La Antigua, Guatemala.

The trial of Ríos Montt, de facto president from 1982-1983, represents the first time a national judiciary has tried a former head of state for the crime of genocide in his home country. It is a testament not only to the brave Ixil Maya witnesses who testified, the tenacious and committed Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, and domestic and international pressure from human rights groups advocating on behalf of the victims, but also to the importance of complementarity between Guatemala’s judicial system and international human rights mechanisms.

That the national judicial system handled such a difficult case suggests that Guatemala’s democratic architecture is stronger than assumed. It is also a reminder that the international rules of justice allocate responsibility for prosecuting crimes like those committed during Guatemala’s darkest days to the level closest to where the crimes occurred – the national level – rather than kicking the case up to the international level. When national authorities fail to carry out that responsibility, however, international actors can step in to address injustice. For example, other cases of mass atrocities committed during the Guatemalan civil war from 1960-1996 have been heard successfully at foreign and international courts, sometimes referred to as courts of last resort, revealing a complex but symbiotic relationship among the various levels of adjudication.

Around the same time private prosecutors began building the domestic prosecution against Ríos Montt in the early 2000’s, a case against him and seven other high-ranking Guatemalan officials was brought before the Spanish National Court by Mayan activist Rigoberta Menchu. The charges included international crimes of torture, genocide, illegal detention and state-sponsored terrorism, acts which Spanish law consider so heinous as to demand universal jurisdiction regardless of where the crime occurred. Those involved in acquiring forensic and archival evidence, however, noted a distinct lack of cross-fertilization between the two tracks in the early years, stemming from disagreement over where these crimes should be addressed. This eventually changed as advocates realized both types of trials complement one another. This led some witnesses and experts who first appeared in the Spanish trial to also testify in the Guatemalan trial, strengthening the case against Ríos Montt and his former director of military intelligence, José Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez.

This sort of behind-the-scenes collaboration is only the beginning of the possibilities for cooperation between national and international courts on human rights trials. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, for example, buttresses national justice systems by identifying and raising awareness about barriers to justice, ordering states to conduct investigations, and pressuring powerful domestic actors to demand more focused action to resolve outstanding cases of injustice. Convictions at the Inter-American Court in the massacres at Dos Erres, Plan de Sánchez, and Rio Negro, and the Diario Militar cases over the last decade reversed the history of impunity connected to these mass atrocities and paved the way for the architects of violence to be held accountable by the national judiciary in Guatemala.

This supra-national influence on domestic matters is not always appreciated. In December 2012, President Otto Pérez Molina’s government adopted an executive resolution meant to restrict the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction to crimes committed after 1987, the year Guatemala first recognized its jurisdiction. This would have precluded victims of any crimes committed during the first 27 years of the internal conflict from seeking justice at the regional level, thereby extending impunity and limiting opportunities for complementarity. Fortunately, under significant pressure from domestic and international human rights defenders, President Pérez Molina announced the derogation of the resolution just one month later, reaffirming Guatemala’s recognition of the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction.

Nevertheless, this attempt to limit the Court’s jurisdiction strikes a chord with a regional movement led by the ALBA countries (primarily Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua) that seeks to curtail the independence of the Inter-American human rights system. This year’s March special session of the OAS General Assembly brought a two-year debate on reforming the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to an uneasy end that lacked consensus or true resolution and failed to strengthen the system. Whether this dialogue will be reopened at June’s regular session remains to be seen, but any rehashing of ploys to weaken or restrict the Inter-American human rights system should be struck down in the strongest of terms.

The future of the Ríos Montt trial is clouded with uncertainty. What is clear is that the rule of law is still precarious in some Latin American countries and the Inter-American human rights system has the ability and responsibility to support its deep entrenchment. Trials like that of Ríos Montt can bring stability and justice to Guatemala and strengthen its democracy by reversing the history of impunity enjoyed by its highest leaders. Similar cases have also been heard by national courts in Argentina, Peru, and Chile, blazing a new path toward national compliance with international human rights norms. The arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in London, for example, spurred an important effort by Chile’s national authorities to detain and prosecute the former dictator in Chile, rather than overseas, thereby strengthening the credibility of its own judiciary.

As the Ríos Montt and other similar cases against soldiers and high-level officials demonstrate, national, foreign and international courts can positively reinforce one another, thereby supporting their shared goals of enforcing justice, reducing impunity, and promoting and protecting human rights.

Authors

Ted Piccone
Ashley Miller

Publication: Open Society Justice Initiative

Image Source: © Jorge Lopez / Reuters

The Impact of Population Aging and Delayed Retirement on Workforce Productivity

Gary Burtless — Fri, 31 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Executive Summary
As the population grows older an increasing share of the workforce will be past age 60. Older workers are considered less productive than younger ones, raising the issue of whether an aging workforce will also be a less productive one. This paper uses evidence from the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) files to shed light on the issue. There are two main reasons for the surge in older workers. First, the sheer size of the baby boom generation means that the number of Americans attaining age 60 each year is climbing steeply. Second, labor force participation rates among adults between 60 and 74 have increased.

The share of all labor income earned by older workers has also soared in recent years because they have enjoyed faster wage gains than workers who are younger. It is important to understand why this is the case. A major reason is that older workers are now better educated compared with prime-age workers than was the case in the past. In the past the gap in education between prime-age workers and older Americans was large. It is now much smaller.

Educational attainment is also important for understanding the increase in Americans’ labor force participation rates at older ages. At older ages there are major differences between the participation rates of highly educated and less educated groups, and these differences have persisted for several decades. In the early 1990s nearly 60 percent of 62-74 year-old men with doctoral and professional degrees were still in labor force. In contrast, only 20 percent of male high school dropouts the same age remained in the workforce. The participation-rate gap was smaller for older women, but it was still sizeable. In the past quarter century there was a steady improvement in older Americans’ educational credentials, both absolutely and in comparison to the qualifications of younger cohorts still in their prime working years. The absolute and relative improvement of the qualifications of the aged will be much slower between now and 2030. The percentage of older men in the lowest and the highest educational classes will remain largely unchanged, though we will see continued gradual improvement in the educational attainment of older women.

The improvement in older Americans’ educational attainment has improved their job market position. This is especially true for the men and women who actually remain in the workforce, because older Americans who stay attached to the labor force after 62 are much more likely to have received schooling after high school. Changes in the distribution of educational attainment have influenced the age profile of earnings. Older workers now receive much better compensation compared with their prime-age counterparts. Workers younger than 50 have seen a modest decline in their relative annual earnings, but workers past 55 have enjoyed impressive relative earnings gains. Compared with the earnings of an average 35-54 year-old worker, the average worker between 65 and 69 has seen his or her earnings climb 30 percentage points. Workers between 70 and 74 experienced a 28-percentage-point gain in their relative earnings. As noted, the relative earnings gains of older workers can be traced to the improvement in their educational attainment compared with younger workers. However, this development does not fully explain their gains. If we separately tabulate the age-earnings profiles of workers within each educational group we see similar, though generally far smaller, income gains among workers in the oldest age categories.

Using data from the March CPS files, I tabulated the distribution of annual earned income received by 25-74 year-old workers. I find that the share of male earnings received by 60-74 year-olds increased from 7.3 percent in 2000 to 12.7 percent in 2010. Among women earners, the share increased from 5.8 percent of total female earnings in 2000 to 11.7 percent of earnings in 2010. The magnitude of these gains is partly explained by the rising share of older workers in the labor force, partly by their increasing levels of work, and partly by improvements in their relative earnings if they do work. Even if employment and earnings patterns of older workers do not change during the next two decades, the share of all labor income received by older workers will continue to rise through about 2025. At their peak in importance, 60-74 year-old men will account for about 16 percent of male earnings and 60-74 year-old women for about 14½ percent of female earnings.

What has been the impact of older workers on workforce productivity? If worker productivity has been harmed by the surge of older workers into the labor force the fact is not evident in the earnings statistics for the elderly themselves. Using one standard benchmark for measuring individual worker productivity— hourly wages—workers between 60 and 74 are currently paid more than an average worker who is between 25 and 59. The hourly pay premium for older men was about 20 percent in 2010. For women it was about 10 percent. Other benchmarks show a somewhat less favorable picture, but all of them show considerable improvement in the relative position of aged workers compared with the nonaged. None of the indicators of male productivity suggest that older male workers are less productive than average workers who are between 25 and 59.

The expectation that older workers will reduce average productivity may be fueled by the perception that the aged are less healthy, less educated, less up-to-date in their knowledge, and more fragile than the young. While all these images of the elderly are accurate to some degree, they do not necessarily describe the people who choose or who are permitted to remain in paid employment at older ages. This paper shows that there are enormous differences between the labor force participation rates of older Americans depending on their level of schooling. People with limited education have low employment rates in old age. People with college and advanced degrees tend to remain in the workforce longer. If less productive workers selectively exit the workforce at younger ages, the average productivity of the older workers who remain may compare favorably to the average productivity of the young. A surge in the percentage of the potential workforce that is old may simply increase the proportion of the workforce that consists of comparatively skilled older workers.

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Gary Burtless

The New Politics of Marijuana Legalization: Why Opinion is Changing

William A. Galston and E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Wed, 29 May 2013 12:00:00 -0400

In less than a decade, public opinion has shifted dramatically toward support for the legalization of marijuana: A recent national survey showed a narrow national majority in favor of legalization, and its supporters translated this sentiment into ballot initiative victories in Colorado and Washington State in 2012, report E.J. Dionne, Jr. and William A. Galston.

The temptation is to conclude that the trend in favor of marijuana legalization is similar to the flow of opinion in favor of same-sex marriage, but not all hot-button social issues are created equal, Dionne and Galston write. It is much less clear that opinion on marijuana will follow the exact evolution of social issues such as marriage equality, the authors assert.

Surveying a wealth of new data on public attitudes toward marijuana legalization, this paper explains the forces and limits behind the trend toward legalization. The authors seek to answer the following: Which trajectory, that of gay marriage or abortion (if either), is more likely to augur the path that opinion on marijuana may take? And will the country see the emergence of a broad pro-legalization consensus, or rather of a durably divisive cultural disagreement?

Dionne and Galston arrive at the following conclusions:

In a number of respects, the structure of public opinion regarding marijuana legalization is distinctive, at least in today’s political context. Among today’s divisive issues, support for marijuana legalization is unusual in cutting across party lines. Generally, broad shifts in cultural attitudes—notably the rise of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture, and then the backlash against it in the 1980s—can trump the influence of party. Gender plays a role, but not necessarily the role one might expect: women are to the “right” of men, more likely to oppose legalization. Becoming parents appeared to have moved baby boomers toward a more conservative stance on legalization, but more recent findings suggest that parenthood may not be as strong a factor in determining one’s position as previously thought. However, married parents are more likely to oppose legalization than unmarried parents.
Attitudes toward legalization are marked by ambivalence, especially on the conservative side. Many of those who favor legalization do so despite believing that marijuana is harmful or reporting that they feel uncomfortable with its use. Among conservatives, many who believe marijuana should be illegal nonetheless support states’ right to legalize it and take a dim view of government’s ability to enforce a ban.
Support for legalization, though growing markedly, is not as intense as opposition, and is likely to remain relatively shallow so long as marijuana itself is not seen as a positive good. Whether opinion swings toward more robust support for legalization will depend heavily on the perceived success of the state legalization experiments now under way—which will hinge in part on the federal response to those experiments.
That said, demographic change and widespread public experience using marijuana imply that opposition to legalization will never again return to the levels seen in the 1980s. The strong consensus that formed the foundation for many of today’s stringent marijuana laws has crumbled.

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The New Politics of Marijuana Legalization

E.J. Dionne, Jr. and William A. Galston — Wed, 29 May 2013 13:05:00 -0400

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The Politics of Marijuana Legalization

Wed, 29 May 2013 14:00:00 -0400

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May 29, 2013
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
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Last November, Colorado and Washington became the first two states to legalize marijuana, and they may not be the last: legalization now has the support of about half the country, up from 25 percent two decades ago. But legalization remains controversial among the public and contrary to federal law and policy. Is a new national consensus emerging, or a new stage of the culture war? Either way, what are the implications?

On May 29th, Governance Studies at Brookings and the Washington Office on Latin America hosted a public forum to discuss changing attitudes towards marijuana legalization. Brookings Senior Fellows William Galston and E.J. Dionne presented findings of a detailed study of evidence from opinion surveys, some of it newly available.

Follow the conversation at #MJLegalization.

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The Obama Preschool Initiative: A Conversation with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

Wed, 29 May 2013 13:00:00 -0400

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May 29, 2013
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

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In his February 12 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed “working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America.” Two days later at a preschool in Decatur, Georgia, he called for “a national priority to give every child access to a high-quality early education.” The president’s budget for 2014, released on April 10, provides $75 billion over ten years for the administration’s preschool initiative and another $17 billion for other early childhood programs. Research shows that poor children who attend high-quality preschool are better prepared for school entry and may show other longer-term benefits as well.

On May 29th, the Center on Children and Families at Brookings and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management hosted Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to explore the administration’s plan to help states expand and improve their preschool programs. Secretary Duncan began by outlining the administration’s plan and explained how the administration works with the states to successfully implement the initiative. Former Congresswoman and former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) discussed some of the challenges states already face in making full use of federal preschool dollars and discussed how the new money could help states mount more effective preschool programs. Rep. Johnson is also outlining potential areas of compromise between the administration and the states.

Join the conversation on Twitter at #PreKPlan.

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Marijuana Legalization: Early Lessons from Colorado and Washington

Beth Stone and Jonathan Rauch — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:16:00 -0400

Last November, in defiance of federal law, the states of Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana. What are the two states learning from implementation efforts so far?

On May 21, Governance Studies at Brookings and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) held a Congressional briefing and released the paper Q&A: Legal Marijuana in Colorado and Washington. The related event and paper are products of a partnership between Brookings and WOLA focused on the marijuana legalization policy debate.

The panelists were Jack Finlaw (chief legal counsel for Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper), Alison Holcomb (drug policy director, ACLU of Washington State), and Mark A. R. Kleiman (professor of public policy, UCLA). Congressmen Jared Polis (D-Colorado) and Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) provided additional remarks. John Walsh of WOLA moderated the discussion.

Panelists said the states confront challenges in implementing legal marijuana, especially with respect to the issues of taxation, quality control and underage use:

Holcomb mentioned that Washington, in particular, faces challenges because, unlike Colorado, it did not start with a well developed regulatory structure for medical marijuana, so it can’t “copy and paste” specific policies.
Finlaw emphasized the difficulties faced by marijuana retailers who, due to marijuana’s illegal status under federal laws, often cannot conduct their businesses through banks. They also cannot deduct businesses expenses from their federal taxes. Both problems make it harder for Colorado to regulate and tax the industry.
Holcomb agreed on the tax issue and said that there is more work to be done on amending the federal law, particularly as attorneys are actually advising some marijuana dealers not to pay taxes in order to avoid self-incrimination under federal law.
Kleiman discussed the testing of marijuana products for quality and composition. He said this process is very difficult because no one audits the testing firms, especially troubling because they insist, “We’re honest, but everyone else cheats.”
Kleiman also pointed out that the more careful a state tries to be in laying down and enforcing clear rules for marijuana production and distribution, the more vulnerable it is to federal intervention. He also warned that policy makers in this space should be wary of making promises they can’t keep, particularly when it comes to underage marijuana use.

Join Governance Studies at Brookings for an event next week, Wednesday, May 29, where Jonathan Rauch, E.J. Dionne, William Galston and others will speak on the politics of marijuana legalization and release a new study on marijuana, generational change and the future.

Watch the video of the event below »

Authors

Beth Stone
Jonathan Rauch

Image Source: © Nick Adams / Reuters

Suburban Poverty Profiles: Montgomery County, Maryland

Alan Berube and Elizabeth Kneebone — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:27:00 -0400

Editor's Note: Suburban Poverty in America, a new book by Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube, explores the growth of suburban poverty and offers unique policy solutions for revitalizing struggling communities. Montgomery County, Maryland is one of the spotlight suburbs, whose plight has also been recognized by NPR. Learn more about the book and other suburban communities at confrontingsuburbanpoverty.org.

Montgomery County, Maryland— a suburban county adjacent to the nation’s capital— consistently ranks among the country’s wealthiest counties. In 2010, it ranked twelfth in the nation for median household income at more than $89,000. Yet in recent years, this million-person jurisdiction has grown increasingly demographically and economically diverse, changing the scope and scale of need among the county’s residents.

The 2000s, in particular, were a period of marked transformation in Montgomery County. Through the middle part of the decade, more jobs and people came to the county and the number of residents living in poverty dropped slightly. However, the disruption of the Great Recession more than erased those gains. No other county in the Washington region, including the District of Columbia, experienced increases in poverty of the same magnitude during the late 2000s.

Data Point: In the three years between 2007 and 2010, Montgomery County shed more than 37,000 jobs, dropping below its 2000 jobs total by 2010.

At the same time that the county faced unprecedented economic challenges, it also experienced a rapid demographic transformation. The 2010 census revealed that, for the first time, non-Hispanic whites constituted less than half (49 percent) of the county’s residents, down from 73 percent two decades earlier. And while immigrants accounted for fewer than one in five residents in 1990, in 2010 they represented almost one-third of the population and almost 40 percent of poor residents.

Data Point: Between 2007 and 2010, the number of residents living below the federal poverty line grew by two-thirds, or more than 30,000 people, pushing the poverty rate up by nearly 3 percentage points.

Rapid increases in poverty, coupled with the shifting demographics, often left communities in suburban Montgomery County struggling to play catch-up without the resources to match the growing and changing needs of their residents. In response, leaders across the county came together to make sure diverse communities in need do not miss out on critical safety net services because of lack of information or cultural barriers, described further in our local innovation profile of Montgomery County’s Neighborhood Opportunity Network (PDF).

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Q&A: Legal Marijuana in Colorado and Washington

John Walsh — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:08:00 -0400

Editor's Note: As a part of our work on the legalization of marijuana, this paper is published in partnership by Governance Studies at Brookings and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). It is edited by John Walsh, with contributions from Mark Kleiman [i] and BOTEC Analysis [ii].

Last November, Colorado and Washington voters approved ballot initiatives to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana—decisions that put them at odds with federal law, which continues to ban marijuana. The states are moving ahead with implementation of their unprecedented laws in the face of uncertainty regarding the response of the federal government. What exactly have the states voted to do? Given current federal law, how might the Obama administration respond? What are the trends in U.S. public opinion on marijuana policy?

1. What are the key features of the initiatives that Colorado and Washington Voters approved?

Both states legalized marijuana possession for personal use by adults ages 21 and older. Colorado, but not Washington, also legalized production for personal use (though Washington residents with medical recommendations may also grow their own marijuana). Both states will create systems of legal production and sale, subject to licensing, regulation and taxation. For those younger than 21, all aspects of marijuana use, possession and sale will remain illegal.

2. What are the major similarities and differences between the Colorado and Washington laws to legalize and regulate marijuana?

Washington and Colorado took identical approaches to possession and age limits: adults 21 and older can possess up to one ounce at any time, normally a misdemeanor charge. The states also appear likely to adopt the same DUI policy, restricting driving with blood THC concentrations higher than 5 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). The Colorado laws are more liberal in that they allow unlicensed production for personal use (up to three maturing plants at a time) and non-commercial transactions up to one ounce.

The states’ laws share similar taxation structures, with modestly heavier taxes in Washington. Washington levies between two and three 25 percent excise taxes within the supply chain, depending on industry structure, yielding a total tax burden likely somewhere between 30 and 40 percent, plus sales tax. Colorado has enacted a 15 percent excise tax on unprocessed product and a 10 percent sales tax, for an approximate effective tax rate between 15 and 25 percent. The precise effective tax rates will vary based on the price of unprocessed marijuana relative to the total retail price, and with varying local sales taxes.

The laws impose different industry structures and build on their existing medical systems in different ways. In Washington, vertical integration across production and sale (i.e., a single entity producing and selling) is forbidden, and thus far no special allowances to current medical marijuana operators have been announced. In Colorado, the new legal structure is more consistent with its existing, vertically integrated medical market. Vertical integration will be required for commercial marijuana industries in Colorado until October 2014, when stand-alone producers and retailers will be allowed. Pre-existing medical marijuana operators in Colorado will also be given exclusive rights to licenses for the first three months.

3. What is the timetable for implementing the new laws?

Washington’s Initiative 502 requires rules to be in place by December 1, 2013. The current timeline calls for the state’s Liquor Control Board to publish draft regulations in mid-June, begin to accept and review license applications in August, and begin to issue licenses by December 1.

Colorado’s Amendment 64 requires the state’s Department of Revenue to adopt all necessary regulations by July 1, 2013, and to begin accepting and processing license applications on October 1, 2013. Current plans call for commercial retail sales by early 2014.

4. Who is responsible for overseeing implementation?

The commercial market in Washington State is to be supervised by the Washington State Liquor Control Board. No state agency regulates production and distribution under the state’s medical marijuana law; there are proposals for giving the Liquor Control Board such authority.

Colorado’s law vests authority to regulate the commercial market in the newly created Marijuana Enforcement Division of the Department of Revenue; the Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division was already regulating that part of the market.

5. What is federal law regarding the cultivation, distribution, possession and use of marijuana?

The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970 makes marijuana a Schedule I substance. Cultivation and distribution (which includes gift as well as sale) are felonies; possession for personal use is a misdemeanor. Use is not itself a crime, but there is no way to use marijuana without possessing it first, and possession of “paraphernalia” is also illegal. Cultivating marijuana 100 plants or more carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years under federal law.

6. What has the Obama administration said about the new state laws?

The Administration has yet to announce a clear policy on the new laws. President Obama, in a December 2012 TV interview with Barbara Walters, acknowledged that the voters of Washington and Colorado had spoken on the issue, that it “does not make sense” for federal enforcement to prioritize recreational drug users in states where use is legal under state law, and that there is a need for “a conversation” about reconciling state and federal law. At the same time, he pointed out that the federal law remains in effect and that the executive branch has the responsibility to enforce the laws.

The Department of Justice (including the Drug Enforcement Administration) has made it clear that the provisions of the CSA covering marijuana remain in force, with Attorney General Eric Holder expressing particular concern about the potential effects of the new state laws on marijuana use by minors. The Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has expressed continued opposition to marijuana legalization. Negotiations are reportedly taking place between federal officials and Colorado and Washington state officials.

During a March 2013 Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Attorney General Holder, in response to Senator Patrick Leahy’s questions about the new state laws, promised to announce a formal policy toward state marijuana legalization “relatively soon.”

7. What authority does the federal government have with respect to the new state laws?

The federal government maintains the power to enforce federal law; however, it cannot compel states to assist in enforcing that law, and the states have no obligation to forbid the same drugs that the federal government forbids. The practical capacity of the federal government to suppress marijuana production and sale without cooperation from the states and localities is open to question, since more than 95 percent of marijuana-law arrests are made by state and local police rather than federal drug enforcement agents.

However, the systems of licensed, regulated, and taxed production and sale created by the Washington and Colorado laws are more vulnerable to federal control than the purely illicit markets, simply because participants in the legal markets are required to identify themselves by applying for state licenses. Federal law enforcement authorities have a variety of criminal and civil tools to deploy against the relatively small number of entities that will ultimately receive licenses to produce or sell marijuana.

By contrast, federal officials lack the resources to identify or take action against the individuals who can now legally possess marijuana in both states, or against individuals who are authorized to grow (but not sell) small amounts of marijuana, either as authorized medical users in Washington or all adult residents of Colorado.

It would be very difficult for the federal government, without local help, to prevent production shielded by those provisions from entering illicit interstate commerce and reducing illegal marijuana prices in neighboring states, and eventually perhaps nationwide. Thus, perversely, the federal government is better able to prevent the operation of legal, regulated marijuana production and sales than it is to prevent the operation of purely illicit markets.

8. Under current federal law, what are options are available to the federal government in responding to the new state laws?

Given the constraints imposed by current federal law, the federal government could (1) sue to invalidate the state laws under the Supremacy Clause and to enjoin state authorities from issuing licenses to marijuana growers and sellers; (2) use injunctions, threats of asset forfeiture, or criminal prosecution to shut down state-licensed marijuana businesses; (3) unilaterally establish a set of enforcement priorities to de-emphasize attacks on state-legal businesses; or (4) enter into cooperative enforcement agreements with the states that could implicitly allow state-regulated systems to function, though without making them legal under federal law.

The CSA itself (21 U.S.C. §873) directs that the Attorney General “shall cooperate” with the state and local governments in enforcing the drug laws, and gives him the power “to enter into contractual agreements [...] to provide for cooperative enforcement and regulatory activities.”

Federal accommodation of the new state laws would offer several potential advantages. It would increase the capacity of governments at all levels to shape the behavior of marijuana-industry participants; it might enable a joint enforcement focus on inter-state transactions; it would acknowledge the sovereign powers that the states share with the federal government; and it would enable the acquisition of more knowledge than is now available about the operations and consequences of legal, open marijuana markets. On the other hand, it would involve effective acquiescence by the executive branch in the open violation of unrepealed federal criminal laws, and its consistency with treaty obligations is questionable.

Shutting down regulated and taxed enterprises, whose operations could potentially be confined within the boundaries of a single state, might expand the scope of operation for unregulated and untaxed enterprises with far less reason to pay attention to state boundaries. Therefore it is an open question whether the goal of reducing drug abuse would be better served by accommodation or by a federal effort to shut down the Colorado and Washington systems.

9. What impact might the Colorado and Washington laws have on marijuana exports from other countries into the United States?

Since Colorado and Washington combined account for less than five percent of estimated total U.S. marijuana sales, legalization in those states is not likely to significantly cut the revenues of foreign drug suppliers (and in particular Mexican drug trafficking organizations) unless marijuana produced in Washington or Colorado can be distributed across state boundaries at prices competitive with Mexican imports. The price of exported marijuana from Washington or Colorado will depend on several factors, including (a) the price of production in state-legal markets, (b) the extent to which product diversion occurs before the imposition of taxes, and (c) the effectiveness of federal, state, and local enforcement efforts to prevent diversion and interstate trafficking. Finally, the ability of Washington- or Colorado-produced exports to compete with imports hinges on how many grams of lower-potency Mexican marijuana consumers will see as being equivalent to one gram of higher-potency, Washington- and Colorado-grown marijuana (i.e., how closely users view the two forms of the drug as substitutes).

Even in the extreme case that production in Colorado and Washington were to entirely displace Mexican marijuana from the U.S. market, Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) would see reduced profits but would not be crippled. They currently earn between a fifth and a third of their drug export revenues from marijuana; those figures do not include their earnings from sales for domestic Mexican consumption or their non-drug revenues from kidnapping and extortion. However, the potential effects of marijuana legalization on Mexican DTOs’ sales of other drugs in the United States are unknown. To the extent that marijuana sales help maintain an illicit infrastructure that facilitates smuggling and distributing a range of illegal commodities, reducing the marijuana market could have helpful spillover effects for reducing the markets for cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.

10. What are the trends in U.S. public opinion on the question of marijuana legalization?

Since the early 1990s, U.S. public opinion has trended in favor of marijuana legalization. Currently, a majority of Americans support legalization by a margin of seven points—52 percent to 45 percent, according to findings from a Pew Research Center survey in March 2013. Support for marijuana legalization has risen sharply since 2010, by 11 percentage points.

Part of the trend involves the replacement of (largely anti-marijuana) pre-Boomer-generation voters with more marijuana-friendly Gen-X members and Millenials. But the trend towards favoring marijuana legalization extends across all age groups. The most striking change has occurred within the Baby Boomer generation, comprising Americans born between 1946 and 1964. Whereas only 24 percent of Baby Boomers approved of legalization in 1994, 50 percent now count themselves in favor of it. In the last decade, support has nearly doubled among the Silent Generation—those Americans born between 1925 and 1942—from 17 percent in 2002 to 32 percent in 2013. Members of so-called “Generation X”—Americans born between 1965 and 1980—have also trended in support of legalization, growing from 28 percent in 1994 to 54 percent in 2013. Among Millennials—those born after 1980—support has risen from 36 percent in 2008 to 65 percent in 2013.

11. Does the public favor federal accommodation of the new state laws or intervention to block the new laws from being implemented?

The prospect of federal intervention to override the new state laws appears to be widely unpopular. A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted after the November 2012 elections found that 63 percent of Americans opposed federal intervention in states that legalized marijuana.

Reflecting changing opinions regarding marijuana legalization, Pew’s March 2013 survey found that 72 percent of Americans believe that government efforts to enforce current marijuana laws cost more than they are worth. Consistent with the USA Today/Gallup poll, Pew also found that 60 percent of Americans oppose federal enforcement in states that have chosen to legalize, including 64 percent of Independents, 59 percent of Democrats, and 57 percent of Republicans.

12. Are other states considering legislation or ballot measures that would legalize marijuana?

Reportedly there may be initiatives for full commercial legalization on the ballot in Alaska in 2014 and in California, Maine, and Oregon in 2016. (Presidential years bring out an electorate more favorable to marijuana legalization than the off-year electorate.) The shape and fate of those propositions depends in part on outcomes in Colorado and Washington, including how the federal government responds.

[i]Mark Kleiman is Professor of Public Policy at UCLA, and Visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Justice.

[ii]BOTEC Analysis is a networked organization that applies the techniques of public policy analysis to the problems of drug abuse and crime control. BOTEC contributors include: Steven Davenport, Daniel Fisher, Tom Jacobson, and Jeremy Ziskind.

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John Walsh

Publication: The Brookings Institution and Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)

What Should the Supreme Court Do About Affirmative Action?

Henry J. Aaron — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:42:00 -0400

Author's note: the following review of the book Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students Its Intended to Help and Why Universities Won’t Admit It by Richard H Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr. was commissioned by Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic on September 10, 2012. It was submitted on January 30, 2013. No editorial comment having been received to date, I am posting it on the Brookings web site.

The Supreme Court decision in Brown versus Board of Education was a watershed event in several respects. It crowned a lengthy legal campaign to overthrow segregation in public schools. It rapidly widened into a multi-front campaign to assure that African Americans, other minorities, and women would not be excluded from any important aspect of American life. And it invoked social science in support of a fundamental reinterpretation of the Constitution.

Following Brown, it soon became clear that removing legal barriers was not enough to end the legacy of discrimination. Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 speech at Howard University stated bluntly that “We seek not just freedom of opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.”

To counter the effects of past discrimination, Johnson said, it is necessary not just to remove barriers but also to offer help. Some assistance was procedural. Selective colleges, universities, and graduate schools began for the first time to recruit minorities actively and to mentor them. Other assistance was substantive, such as making race, sex, or national origin a ‘plus factor’ for jobs, contracts, and college admission. Programs of this sort immediately raised knotty conundrums for law, ethics, and social science. Were they constitutional? Were they fair? Did they work?

The legal problem was obvious. The 14^th amendment states: “No State shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act flatly bars consideration of race in hiring and promotion decisions. Many universities are state chartered and supported. Private and public institutions of higher learning receive federal contracts. The constitution and civil rights laws make no exception for discrimination practiced to redress past injustices.

Ethical issues are also inescapable. Giving African Americans or Hispanics a special break does not increase the number of jobs or slots in university classes. Giving them an edge means pushing others back in the queue. Many of those ‘others’ never personally did anything wrong. If giving such edges to past or present victims of discrimination was accepted, how large an edge was it fair to give and for how long?

In its earliest phases, affirmative action clearly helped its intended beneficiaries. In 1933 when Harold Ickes and his two lieutenants, Clark Foreman and Robert Weaver—later the first black cabinet officer under president Johnson—required that blacks be hired to help build public housing, there could be little doubt that African Americans benefitted from their action. When Richard Nixon’s Secretary of Labor, George Shultz, commented about discrimination in the building industry: “We found a quota system; it was there; it was zero,” there could be no doubt that moving from zero would help those who had been excluded. The nation was so far from the goal of fair treatment of minorities and women that possible conflicts with other objectives seemed remote. But when selective colleges and universities began to admit minority students with comparatively weak academic credentials, many of whom got poor grades and dropped out at distressing rates, a new question arose...did race preferences, at least in higher education, really help those they were intended to help?

Research on the impact of preferential admissions in higher education and litigation over its constitutionality ran on parallel tracks.

The policy of boosting enrollments at selective universities and colleges from what came to be called ‘under-represented minorities’ developed rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s. It coincided with efforts by those institutions to become genuine meritocracies. Although prestigious undergraduate and graduate programs had always favored the academically talented, they also held many slots for the offspring of previous graduates and generous donors. Athletic or artistic skills helped too, of course. Discrimination in admissions was routine, primarily to hold down the numbers of bright kids with the “wrong” religion or cultural background.

Then in the 1960s and 1970s, the weight attached to good grades and high test scores on entrance exams soared. Bragging rights came to those colleges whose entering classes had the highest scores on college entrance examinations. Some slots were still held for the progeny of previous graduates, the well-connected, the financially generous, and the artistically talented or athletically skilled. But academic standards for admission rose at both the undergraduate and graduate level. In simple terms, the ‘good’ schools, more than ever before, became academically excellent.

As far back as the 1970s concern grew that the policy of giving an edge to African Americans, Hispanics, and other members of under-represented minorities, however well-intentioned, might be doing more harm than good. Giving applicants from these groups an edge in admissions necessarily meant that, on the average, they came with weaker academic credentials than did whites. To be sure, selective schools offered matriculants big advantages—enriched environments, good connections, and, to those who graduated, a valued credential. On the other hand, students without adequate preparation might find the work just too difficult. As a result, they might even learn less than they would at less selective institutions. They might suffer stigma or be marked as second-raters or shamed as beneficiaries of unearned advantages, as many critics of affirmative action claim and some supporters fear. The result would be low-academic performance, high drop-out rates, wasted time and money, and, in extreme cases, blighted lives. The risk of these adverse effects would be larger the greater the gap between the student’s preparation and the norm at the institution they attended. This, in brief, was known as the mismatch hypothesis.

Determining whether a mismatch effect actually exists is extremely difficult. Even if admissions were race blind and even if there were no mismatch effect whatsoever, African Americans and Hispanics admitted to selective colleges and universities would predictably have lower grades and graduate a lower rates than do whites. This expectation is in no manner racist. It follows directly from two indisputable facts. African Americans and Hispanics applying to college have lower test scores and high-school grades on the average than do whites; and test scores and grades both are predictive of academic performance.

A hypothetical example illustrates how these two facts will produce different success rates for various groups. Imagine that colleges use an academic index for selecting students. The index can take on three values: 1 (high), 2 (medium), or 3 (low). Those with a higher academic index do better on the average in college than those with a lower score. Imagine also that out of every 100 whites, 35 score 1, and 35 score 2, and that out of every 100 African Americans and Hispanics 10 score 1 and 50 score 2. Selective schools admit only those who score 1 or 2, and they do so in a race-blind manner. Half of whites but only one-sixth of African Americans and Hispanics score 1. Those who score 1 do better in college than those who score 2. It follows that whites will do better in college on the average than will African Americans or Hispanics. This conclusion would not follow if tests and grades under-predicted performance of minorities relative to that of whites. But repeated studies have shown that tests and grades do not under-predict performance of African Americans and Hispanics.

The observation that African Americans and Hispanics who enroll at selective universities have lower qualifications for admission than do whites should therefore come as no surprise. Affirmative action adds to the difference between test scores and grades of entering students. But gaps would exist even if there were no affirmative action, and whether or not mismatch exists.

So, the challenge...how can one tell from the observation that African Americans and Hispanics do less well in college than do whites at selective schools whether this gap results from mechanical reasons of the sort just described or from harm inflicted through mismatch?

Simply comparing grades and graduation rates of various groups is not enough. The undeniable fact that students from under-represented minorities get poorer grades and drop out more often than white students do proves nothing about whether affirmative action helps or hurts its intended beneficiaries. One could go further and measure whether students at selective institutions do better or worse than do students with similar test scores and grades at other colleges and universities.

That is just what Derek Bok and William Bowen, former presidents of Harvard and Princeton, respectively, did in their evocatively titled book, The Shape of the River. This study, published in 1998, drew on a rich data set developed with the support of the Mellon Foundation, which Bowen then headed. The survey reported on a large data set—College and Beyond—reporting the college experiences, graduation rates, and subsequent earnings of 93,660 students who graduated from thirty-four select universities and colleges in 1951, 1976, and 1989. Using statistical techniques that controlled for the expected influence of high-school grades, pre-college admission tests, race, and certain other characteristics, the authors found that African-American students who attended elite universities did as well as or better than African-American student who attended less elite institutions. The authors reported that they found no evidence to support the mismatch hypothesis.

The Bok-Bowen study was highly influential. The authors are highly respected. The survey was large. The information it contained was broad and detailed. Even so, the survey data were not ideally suited to test the effects of affirmative action. The earliest surveyed cohort attended college before affirmative action was much practiced and it is not clear to what extent that cohort drove the results. The data came mostly from highly selective institutions. Furthermore, because the data have not been freely available, few scholars could check the Bok-Bowen findings or do additional analysis. The importance of making data available so that other scholars may try to replicate results and identify errors hardly needs emphasis in light of recent controversies regarding the impact of government debt on economic growth.

Bowen and other co-authors revisited the question of how college affects students in 2009 with a new study, Crossing the Finish Line, based on an even larger survey. This study reported on the experiences of 124,522 freshmen who began college in 1999 at one of fifty-seven four-year public universities. These institutions were generally less selective than those included in the College and Beyond survey. Bowen reported some startling results. Regardless of the quality of the high schools that students attended, their grades predicted college performance far better than did standardized tests. The 2009 study also confirmed the major finding of The Shape of the River—that after controlling for high-school grades, test scores, race, and socio-economic status, students were more likely to graduate from more selective than from less selective universities. Once again, Bowen and his co-authors found no evidence to support the mismatch—what they called the ‘over-match’—hypothesis. Students are well-advised, they said, to enroll in the most selective institution that will accept them.

Critics questioned whether the Bok-Bowen studies provided support for affirmative action. Invoking considerations of fairness, Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom noted that high graduation rates from elite institutions reflected not only the high qualifications of enrollees, but the high expectations for graduation at them. Besides, they emphasized, giving a race- or ethnicity-based edge to some necessarily involves a race- or ethnicity-based handicap for others. One of those groups with a race-based handicap, they noted, are Asians, whose academic credentials on the average outshine those of whites and who suffered much discrimination in American history.

Others argued that ordinary survey data are inherently inadequate to test the mismatch hypothesis. No survey can measure all educationally-relevant student characteristics. Specifically, surveys cannot measure aspirations or mental toughness, which are relevant to educational outcome and may be correlated with the schools students attend. Many social scientists argue that the best way, and sometimes the only adequate way, to test the effect of an intervention is the randomized experiment. Such methods are routine in medical and agricultural research, but they are not normally available to those testing the effects of affirmative action. Students cannot be randomly assigned to colleges. And, even if they could be, the very act would color the results. Normally, analysts are stuck with survey data. They can do no more than control statistically for every influence they can measure and hope that omitted factors are not very important.

From the earliest years of affirmative action, those denied admission to schools that gave minorities a race-based or ethnicity-based edge have challenged the practice in court. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in The Regents of the University of California v. Bakke that the constitution barred the university from setting aside a fixed number of slots in its medical school class for under-represented minorities. But, universities could use race as a ‘plus’ factor in pursuit of ‘diversity,’ which, the Court said, is a legitimate educational goal. To this day, however, the Court has not defined exactly what diversity is or how one would know if it had been achieved.

Breaking with Bakke, the federal Circuit Court serving Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi ruled in 1995 in Hopwood v. Texas that the University of Texas Law School could not use race as a factor in admissions. The case never got to the Supreme Court, however, because Texas dropped the challenged admissions practices.

Seven years later, the Supreme Court heard a pair of challenges to admission practices at the University of Michigan. For undergraduate admissions, Michigan used a point scale based on grades, test scores, and other factors. One hundred points assured admission. Under-represented minorities received 20 points automatically. In Gratz v. Bollinger, by a 5-4 margin, the Court reaffirmed that the pursuit of diversity is a legitimate goal, but it ruled that Michigan’s procedure was not ‘narrowly tailored,’ did not in general treat each applicant individually, resembled a quota system, which the Court had disallowed in Bakke, and was therefore unacceptable.

At the same time, also by a 5-4 vote, the Court upheld a race-conscious admission policy by the Michigan Law School. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the court said that the use of race was acceptable because the law school considered many factors and did so on an individual basis. The swing vote in both cases and author of the opinion of the Court was the now-retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who has been succeeded by Justice Samuel Alito, widely thought to be less sympathetic than O’Connor to affirmative action.

The legal history is marked by chaotic disagreement. Not only has the court been divided, but the majorities have disagreed in the reasoning that has led to their judgments. For strong minded, independent jurists to reach a common position by different reasoning is not unusual. But the opinions reflect unresolvable internal conflicts. The Constitution guarantees equal protection, irrespective of race, national origin, sex, and age. Yet, American history is redolent of despicable violations of those principles. When, at last, Congress and private groups began to take steps to counter the legacy of discrimination, the highest court has been willing to curb, but not bar, these measures—at least, not yet.

While the idea that the best qualified people should get jobs, the best proposal should win the contract, and the best students should be admitted to selective colleges commands widespread support, few people adhere rigidly to the principles of meritocracy. They understand that in many cases no clear or reliable metrics exist for measuring merit. Furthermore, once one acknowledges that colleges and universities may legitimately consider factors other than test scores and grades in determining which applicants should be admitted, it is inevitable that some students refused admission will be better qualified on academic grounds than those admitted.

The point made in virtually every legal brief by a litigant complaining of discrimination because an African American or Hispanic with lower test scores or a weaker academic record was admitted reflects a profound confusion—such a result is inescapable once other criteria for admission are allowed to influence results. And because race, musical talent, athletic skills, and other non-academic characteristics predict academic performance less well than do grades and test scores, it is likely that those admitted because of such ‘non-academic’ qualifications will perform less well, on the average, than those admitted for purely academic reasons. Their grades are likely to be lower and they are likely to graduate at lower rates than those with stronger grades and test scores. Other influences, such as compensatory programs for the ill-prepared, easy grading (for athletes), or enrollment in ‘gut’ courses can partly or fully offset such tendencies. But the tendency is basic.

The issue of whether affirmative action in education is constitutional has returned to the Supreme Court docket. On February 21, 2012 the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case of Fisher v. Texas. Oral arguments took place on October 10, 2012. Outside interest in the case has been intense. The court received 90 ‘friend of the court’ (amicus curiae) briefs from interested parties, including social scientists.

Following the Hopwood decision, Texas adopted a simple policy of admitting applicants in the top 10 percent of Texas high-school graduating classes. Although the top-10-percent formula sacrifices some academic selectivity, it is a transparently reasonable admissions policy for a state-chartered institution dependent on state funds for part of its budget. It does not explicitly involve race or ethnic origin, but de facto residential segregation guarantees that this formula will result in the admission of more African Americans and Latinos than if admissions were based on test scores. Since its adoption, this formula has accounted for 60 to 80 percent of undergraduate admissions to the University of Texas. Following the Grutter decision, which sanctioned admission policies that considered race in a narrowly targeted, individual manner, Texas instituted what it called a “holistic” process to govern other admissions. The holistic admissions procedure uses both an academic index, based on test scores and grades, and a personal achievement index based on a wide range of other factors including two essays, family background, activities in the community and elsewhere, and race.

Ms. Fisher, a white Texas high school graduate, was in the 12^th percent of her class and therefore was not admitted on the 10 percent plan. Nor was she admitted through the alternative selection process. She was offered a place on a waiting list, which she refused. She challenged the constitutionality of the Texas admission policy, claiming that but for her race she would have been admitted and was thereby unconstitutionally denied equal protection under the law.

The briefs of the parties to the case focus on whether the use of race in the Texas formula does or does not qualify as ‘limited and individualized,’ as specified by Justice O’Connor in Grutter v. Bollinger. But the court may go further by limiting or overturning Grutter, and at least four justices are thought to be disposed to do so. Persuasive evidence that affirmative action harms those it is intended to help would buttress the ethical foundation for such a position. One of the amicus briefs, by UCLA law professor Richard Sander and legal journalist Stuart Taylor, argues just that. Their book, Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It, is a lengthy and rich argument in support of this position. So significant is this indictment of affirmative action that another amicus brief, by a veritable Who’s Who of empirical social scientists is devoted to rebutting the Sander/Taylor brief. Social scientists submitted several other amicus briefs, some in support of Ms. Fisher’s appeal, some opposed.

Mismatch extends and elaborates an indictment of affirmative action first presented by Sander in 2004 in a Stanford Law Review article. That article provoked intense controversy, personal invective, and allegations of data suppression. Mismatch recounts this controversy in score-settling detail and is, thus, also a personal memoir and an expose of intellectual politics in the academy, as well as a layman’s guide to social science research on a tricky subject. Co-author Stuart Taylor comes to this tale with the background of having written Until Proven Innocent, a chilling and devastating expose of the way a rogue—and subsequently disbarred—district attorney railroaded Duke lacrosse players after a stripper falsely accused them of rape, and tells how Duke faculty members and administrators rushed to condemn the players despite abundant warning signs of prosecutorial abuse.

Sander and Taylor do not argue that affirmative action is inherently harmful to its intended beneficiaries, but rather that it is pushed to a damaging extreme. To make their case, they lay out a theory of how affirmative action, as practiced by the most select universities and colleges, ramifies through much of higher education. A few top universities are able to attract most of the academically able African Americans and Hispanics. Although the academic credentials of these students, on the average, are not as strong as those of their white or Asian classmates, these African-Americans and Hispanic students are mostly able to handle the academic challenges they face at these top schools. Sander and Taylor argue that is why Bok and Bowen found that most of the minority students they surveyed graduate and do well professionally.

But that is just part of the story. The selective institutions, Sander and Taylor argue, so seriously deplete the limited pool of academically well-qualified minorities that lower tier schools, also trying to meet affirmative action goals, admit applicants with credentials so weak that these students do less well than they would at still less selective institutions. Mismatch can be inferred as well, Sander and Taylor argue, from the finding that a larger proportion of students with a given SAT score major in the difficult STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math) at less-selective than at more selective schools.

The reasoning is straightforward. First-level courses in these fields that serve as pre-requisites for upper division study weed out students who are comparatively weak at the institutions they are attending. Because affirmative action allows minority students to attend colleges where their academic preparation is comparatively weak, such students are more likely to get weeded out than they would be had they attended less-selective colleges and universities, where their academic preparation would have been more competitive.

The strongest evidence for the mismatch hypothesis comes not from data on undergraduate admissions but from information on law school graduates. The American Bar Association compiled data on thousands of law school graduates from a wide range of law schools—the Bar Passage Study (BPS). Because student grades and class rank depend, in part, on the average academic strength of classmates, students with a given academic index are more likely to get better grades at lower ranked law schools than they would at higher ranked law schools. Furthermore, African American and Hispanic students covered in the BPS were the beneficiaries of sizeable race- and ethnicity-based admission preferences at most law schools.

Based on data from the BPS, Sander and Taylor report two findings that, they argue, suggest mismatch. First, African American and Hispanic law school graduates with similar academic index scores (based on undergraduate performance) to those of whites passed the bar at lower rates than did whites. But if one controlled for both academic index and law school grade point average, there was no significant difference in passage rates of African Americans, Hispanics, and Whites. The reason why relative class standing influences bar passage, they argue, is that instruction and grading are geared to the median student in each school. Students who are weaker than average at a given school will find it hard to keep up, will learn less than they would if instruction was geared to their level of preparation, and will therefore pass the bar exam at lower rates than they would had they attended a school better tailored to for their academic skills. This finding implies that law school students should not follow the advice from Bok and Bowen gave to undergraduates—go to the most selective school that will admit you—but should instead be very careful not to over-reach.

Could both Bok/Bowen and Sander/Taylor be correct? The curricula at professional and graduate schools are notoriously austere. The environment in law school is ruthlessly meritocratic to an extent true of few undergraduate programs. If the conditions between undergraduate and graduate schools and among undergraduate programs are sufficiently different, affirmative action might help in some cases and hurt in others.

An intense intellectual battle followed Sander’s 2004 article and continues to this day. One exchange illustrates how hard the issues are analytically and how difficult it is to reach consensus. Two members of the Yale Law School faculty, Ian Ayres and Richard Brooks, noted that not all African Americans surveyed in the BPS accepted admission letters from the schools they had listed as their first choices. Some went to lower choice schools that were mostly less selective than the first choice schools. The students in the two groups were otherwise similar. If mismatch were a problem, they reasoned, students who went to first choice schools would be more likely to get low grades and less likely to pass the bar than those who went to less select schools. In an initial draft, Ayres and Brooks found no such differences and stated that the evidence provided no support for the mismatch hypothesis.

Sander reports that Ayres and Brooks shared their analysis with him and that he pointed out errors, which they then corrected. After the corrections were made, Sander and Taylor claim that the corrected results closely match what the mismatch hypothesis suggests—those students who did not go to their first-choice, relatively select law schools got better grades, graduated at a higher rate, and were more likely to pass the bar on their first try. But, they assert, Ayres and Brooks refused to modify the text of their initial draft. In addition, Ayres and Brooks are among the signers of the amicus brief by quantitative social scientists which is highly critical of the methods that Sander and Taylor use. This brief states flatly: “Sander’s research has major methodological flaws—misapplying basic principles of causal inference—that call into doubt his controversial conclusions about affirmative action....Sander’s research does not constitute credible evidence that affirmative action practices are harmful to minorities....”

Quite apart from the analytical case that Sander and Taylor make against affirmative action, Mismatch is an expose of politics and back-biting in the academy. It charges that those controlling what should be publicly available data refuse access to people who it is feared will come up with politically objectionable answers. It charges critics with refusals to admit demonstrable mistakes. Both Taylor’s earlier book on the Duke rape case and Mismatch report enough unreasoned and unreasonable behavior in the name of political correctness to make one gag. Most importantly, Mismatch charges universities and colleges with a stunning lack of candor regarding the extent of affirmative action and refusal to provide data with which analysts could evaluate its effects.

Although Mismatch indicts affirmative action in its current form, Sander and Taylor recommend that affirmative action be modified not ended. They note that minorities who are favored by affirmative action disproportionately come from favored socio-economic groups, children of professionals and others with higher education. They recommend that racial preferences be no larger than preferences based on financial need and socioeconomic status. The emergence of growing economic inequality heightens the appeal of class-based affirmative action. Precisely how such balancing of racial, socio-economic, and needs-based factors might be achieved is not explained in the book. Others have also urged class-based affirmative action as both fairer and politically more acceptable than race-based affirmative action—notably, Richard Kahlenberg who has taken that position for nearly two decades. Unfortunately, Sander and Taylor leave a key question unanswered—if current race-based affirmative action harms intended beneficiaries, why wouldn’t a mix of some race-based and some class-based affirmative action also do so?

Particularly troubling for a technically minded reader/reviewer is the absence from a book running to nearly 300 pages of any clear, technical presentation of the mismatch hypothesis. The authors say at the outset that in order to keep the book to a reasonable length, they are omitting ‘technical or elaborating material’ but that such details can be found at their website. At various other points in the book, readers are also advised that they can find further detail at the same web site. As I write this review and after personal contact with both authors, the website remains without such supporting material.

What conclusions should the Court and the public take from Mismatch and the cacophony of conflicting research on the effects of affirmative action? First, universities and colleges should provide qualified analysts access to data on admission practices. It is not credible that universities would suffer irreparable damage if their admission practices were publicized. Nor is it believable that minorities who benefit from racial preferences would wilt from the stigma if these practices were spelled out. The failure of colleges and universities to divulge data on the way affirmative action operates should not be tolerated. The best way to correct any over-use or misuse of affirmative action is not to ban it but to insist that its operation be illuminated with hard data and further analysis.

Second, on the major theme—the charge that affirmative action hurts its intended beneficiaries—I believe that judgment must still be withheld. Sander and Taylor present a powerful case that it does so in particular instances. But the character of college and university programs and their objectives is enormously varied. It is much more important to make sure that African Americans and Hispanics are well-represented among tomorrow’s public officials and business leaders and that they are well trained than it is to assure racial or ethnic diversity among tomorrow’s mathematicians and biomedical researchers. Meritocratic values have their place. So too do the values of inclusiveness. If there was ever a place where one size does not fit all, it is in the treatment of affirmative action within the academy.

Authors

Henry J. Aaron

Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

Jonathan Rauch — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:03:00 -0400

"It became a cascade." Dale Carpenter, a friend who e-mailed those words from Minneapolis, was writing about the unexpectedly lopsided vote for same-sex marriage in the Minnesota House last week (the state Senate approved it Monday, and the governor has signed it), but he might have been writing about the whole marriage movement.

This month, Rhode Island and Delaware approved gay marriage. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court could restore it in California. If that happens, nearly 30% of the population will live in gay-marriage states.

The cascade extends beyond marriage. America is rethinking its whole relationship with its gay citizens. This month, a poll by ABC News and The Washington Post found not only a 55% majority supporting marriage equality, but also even bigger majorities in favor of allowing openly gay Boy Scouts and opposed to banning gay Scout leaders. As for NBA center Jason Collins' public announcement that he's gay, it isn't even controversial: It enjoys 68% approval.

To understand why the public is breaking so fast for same-sex marriage, look not at "blue" (Democratic-leaning) states that recently approved it. Glance instead at deep-red South Carolina.

There, on the same day that Delaware's Senate passed marriage equality, the voters of the first congressional district sent former Republican governor and congressman Mark Sanford back to the House seat he occupied in the late 1990s.

Now, this is not a man who has done right by marriage. Rather, he used it as a doormat. As governor, Sanford took a mistress, then disappeared for days on a visit to her in Argentina and lied about it. He lost his job and his marriage. But last week, the voters chose to overlook both his infidelity and his mendacity. They even overlooked Sanford's putting his mistress (now fiancée) onstage at a campaign event with his 14-year-old son, whom news accounts described as "visibly uncomfortable."

The voters of South Carolina are entitled to shrug off Sanford's connubial escapades, but many other people notice a conservative double standard. No matter how hard gays work to be true to our life partners, we don't qualify for marriage. But no matter how shabbily straights treat their vows, they qualify not only for marriage but also for Congress.

When millions of Americans see straight people busting up marriages while gay people struggle to form them, they draw the obvious, and correct, conclusion. America needs more marriages, not fewer. The threat to marriage in the USA today comes not from gays' trying to marry but from straights' failing to get married and stay married.

Researchers find that blue states have lower rates of divorce and teen pregnancy than red states do. "If you're looking for solid marriages," as the (conservative) New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has written, "head to Massachusetts, not Alabama." Why? Gay marriage probably isn't reducing straight divorce rates, at least not much. But it is part and parcel of a re-commitment to family values, not a flight from them.

Same-sex marriage is socially conservative in that sense — and in a deeper sense, too. The movement is about equality and rights, yes, but it is also about responsibility and obligation. Marriage joins couples not just in a contract with each other but also in a pact with their community, their kids, their God and millenniums of custom. Gay and lesbian Americans yearn for those bonds.

The father of conservatism, Edmund Burke, famously said society is "a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born." In seeking marriage, gays are asking to join Burke's mighty stream of tradition. They are asking to be constrained, not liberated: to be tied to a commitment larger than themselves, larger even than each other.

That is why same-sex marriage is cascading. The public looks at marriage equality and sees the greatest social conservative movement of our time. And, at least outside South Carolina, it looks at Mark Sanford and sees something else.

Republished from USA Today >>

Authors

Jonathan Rauch

Publication: USA Today

Confronting Suburban Poverty in America

Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube — Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2013 184pp.

Video

Presentation - Confronting Suburban Poverty in America

Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube have spent over a decade researching poverty. In 2006, they began work on a report and discovered trends that surprised them. In Confronting Suburban Poverty, they explore the whats, whys and meanings of suburban poverty and what it brings to social issues.

Excerpt:

Buried within our analysis was a trend that struck us as noteworthy: by our calculations, there now seemed to be more poor people in metro areas living outside of big cities than within them.

We first got into the issue of suburban poverty by accident. Other than having grown up in the suburbs like most Americans our age (Elizabeth around Indianapolis; Alan around Worcester, Massachusetts), neither of us ever really studied suburbia very carefully. And each of us today lives in a big city (Washington, D.C.). But in 2006 we wrote a Brookings report about poverty trends in cities and metropolitan areas in the 2000s. Buried within our analysis was a trend that struck us as noteworthy: by our calculations, there now seemed to be more poor people in metro areas living outside of big cities than within them. We spoke with a lot of people about the report, and they had trouble wrapping their heads around that statistic. Admittedly, we did, too.

The changing map of American poverty matters because place matters… Place intersects with core policy issues central to the long-term health and stability of metropolitan areas and to the economic success of individuals and families…”

As poverty becomes increasingly regional in its scope and reach, it challenges conventional approaches that the nation has taken when dealing with poverty in place. Many of those approaches were shaped when President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national War on Poverty in 1964. At that time, poor Americans were most likely to live in inner-city neighborhoods or sparsely populated rural areas. Fifty years later, public perception still largely casts poverty as an urban or rural phenomenon. Poverty rates do remain higher in cities and rural communities than elsewhere. But for three decades the poor population has grown fastest in suburbs.

The changing map of American poverty matters because place matters. It starts with the metropolitan areas, the regional economies that cut across city and suburban lines and drive the national economy. Place intersects with core policy issues central to the long-term health and stability of metropolitan areas and to the economic success of individuals and families— things like housing, transportation, economic and workforce development, and the provision of education, health, and other basic services. Where people live influences the kinds of educational and economic opportunities and the range of public services available to them, as well as what barriers to accessing those opportunities may exist. The country’s deep history of localism means that, within the same metropolitan area, a resident of one community will not necessarily have the same access to good jobs and quality schools, or even basic health and safety services, as a person in another community, whether across the region or right next door.

Perhaps most emblematic of the fast-growing suburban communities that multiplied in the postwar era were the developments built by Abraham Levitt and his sons William and Alfred. In the Levittowns built on Long Island, and outside Philadelphia (in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Willingboro, New Jersey), Levitt and Sons honed their approach to suburban development, using a standardized housing design, preassembled parts, and vertical integration of suppliers to speed production. Regarding these cookie-cutter Cape Cods with a living room, a bathroom, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a yard, Kenneth Jackson observed, “This early Levitt house was as basic to post World War II suburban development as the Model T had been to the automobile. In each case, the actual design features were less important than the fact that they were mass produced and thus priced within reach of the middle class.” Jackson also noted that while Levitt did not invent many of the techniques he employed, the wide publicity of his developments served to popularize his approach. Large builders in metropolitan areas throughout the country—including developers in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington— adopted similar methods.

* * *

Confronting Suburban Poverty is available in both hardcover and eBook formats:

Infographic; What’s Driving the Rapid Rise of Poverty in the Suburbs?:

(Click to expand)

Event:

On May 20, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings hosted an event marking the release of Confronting Suburban Poverty in America, co-authored by Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube. Below, you can watch a piece of the event with Elizabeth Kneebone, as she discusses how the landscape of poverty in America has changed.

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Presentation - Confronting Suburban Poverty in America

In the News:

Read The New York Times Op-Ed on Confronting Suburban Poverty in America »

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Elizabeth Kneebone

Alan Berube

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Ordering Information:

{CD2E3D28-0096-4D03-B2DE-6567EB62AD1E}, 978-0-8157-2390-5, $28.95 Order
{B98DCBB0-3580-4D55-ABD4-AB91E00585E6}, , $28.95 Order

How Much Do Americans Care About Income Inequality? Part II

Scott Winship — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:00:00 -0400

Recently in this space, I criticized an op-ed that claimed to resolve a paradox related to inequality and public policy. Ilyana Kuziemko and Stefanie Stantcheva argued that while Americans are "deeply troubled about the current level of income inequality," support for government policy to reduce it is low. Based on a series of randomized experiments they conducted with Emmanuel Saez and Michael Norton, Kuziemko and Stantcheva speculated that rising inequality has eroded trust in government, resolving the paradox.

In my previous essay, I argued that there is little evidence to indicate that Americans are particularly concerned about inequality, so their lack of interest in having the government intervene should be unsurprising. Here I want to draw attention to a problem with the conclusion of Kuziemko and her colleagues that providing people with information about inequality reduced trust in government.

In their experiment, some survey respondents were provided information about their ranking in the income distribution and about inequality levels. Receiving this information produced a decline in expressed levels of trust in government. Kuziemko and her colleagues conclude that,"emphasizing the severity of a social or economic problem appears to undercut respondents' willingness to trust the government to fix it-the existence of the problem could act as evidence of the government's limited capacity to improve outcomes more generally." But the information in their survey did not simply emphasize the severity of inequality, it exaggerated economic hardship.

Respondents randomly selected to receive information about inequality first input their "annual household income" and were told the share of "US households" that earn less than their own "household." But the information the survey gave respondents made them feel richer than they were. I typed into the survey form the 2011 median household income according to the Census Bureau-$50,054. The survey should have told me that "my" household was richer than 50 percent of American households-that's what the median is. Instead, I was told I was richer than 66 percent of households.

In fact, what the information provided by the survey told the subject was the percentage of tax returns that have less gross income than the household income she reported. Tax returns are not households. Two roommates living together, a cohabiting couple, a married couple filing separate returns-all of these constitute one household but two tax returns. More to the point, a sixteen-year-old burger-flipper or a fulltime college student with a work-study job are also distinct tax returns even if they live at home. Furthermore, gross income on tax returns (AGI with adjustments put back in) is not "household income" as most people think of it. For example, non-taxable public transfers-including most Social Security benefits and all welfare benefits-are excluded. So are the tax-favored employee benefits commonly deducted from paychecks, such as health insurance premiums, retirement plan contributions, and flexible spending accounts.

The result of these differences between the income of households and the gross income of tax returns is that the median for the former is quite a bit bigger than the median for the latter (and the same is true for other parts of the income distribution, such as the "richest ten percent" or the"poorest third"). The survey tool reports that $33,800 is the median "household income"-one-third less than the actual median.

The respondent, then, "learned" that she was richer than she was, and if she correctly thought that her standard of living was average before responding, she learned that it was better than average. More people were doing worse than her than she thought, and fewer people were doing better than her. The next step in the survey drove that home by inviting her to move a slider to see how "households" with different income levels rank compared with other households. This step reinforced that Americans were poorer than they actually were.

Different subjects were shown additional screens subsequently. However, everyone randomized to receive the information about inequality proceeded through the rest of the survey-with its questions about policy preferences and trust in government-having been given this overly-negative data about how Americans are doing economically. The subjects randomized to bypass the informational screens were not primed in this way. The design of this experiment does not allow us to assess whether getting accurate information about the distribution of household income reduces trust in government. Instead, trust in government may be eroded by getting anxiety-provoking (and inaccurate) information.

Interestingly, Kuziemko and her colleagues report results from a separate experiment they conducted indicating that among below-median households, being primed with negative information about the state of the economy reduces opposition to inequality and support for redistribution and for progressive approaches to deficit reduction. It may be that attempting to convince middle class Americans that economic insecurity is more pervasive than it is will prove counterproductive to those who wish to help the truly insecure.

I have argued elsewhere that conventional accounts on the left do, in fact, systematically overstate both the extent of economic insecurity and the strength of the evidence that income inequality is harmful. It would be a regrettable irony if an excessive and distorted focus on inequality turns out to be more harmful to struggling families than income inequality itself.

Authors

Scott Winship

Publication: Real Clear Markets