Spring Edition 2014

The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics (ISSN 1556-2034) is published bi-annually by the Nu Omega Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, Oakland University, Department of Political Science, 418 Varner Hall, Rochester, MI 48309-4488. The journal is funded by Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society, 1527 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036, http://www.pisigmaalpha.org.

The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics was founded in the spring of 2001 by Delta Omega Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha at Purdue University, under the name The American Undergraduate Journal of Politics and Government. With the sponsorship of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society, the name of the Journal was changed to The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics as of the Fall 2004 edition.

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The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics Spring 2014

Volume XIV

Number 1 Twenty-Seventh Edition

Jane Dixon Alyssa Clarke Evan Jones Dr. Laura Landolt Dr. Terri Towner

Outreach Editor Content Editor Technology Editor Faculty Advisor Faculty Advisor

Editorial Board Jude Alsawah Eric Burgess Marc DuBuis Ellen Hainey Kendall Kosikowski Matthew Kunz Robert Larsen

Dana Mosa-Basha Carly Puzniak Matthew Quinn Alexandru Salar Spencer Schredder Julia Vela Jacqueline Yee

Advisory Board Dr. Robert Alexander II Dr. Nicole Asmussen Dr. Cristian Cantir Dr. Natasha Duncan Dr. Alan Epstein Dr. Stephen J. Farnsworth Dr. Paulette Kurzer Dr. Laura Landolt

Dr. Daniel O’Neill Dr. D’andra Orey Dr. Mark P. Petracca Dr. Jo Reger Dr. Terri Towner Dr. Pete Trumbore Dr. Byungwon Woo

Editor’s Preface to the Fall Edition The Pi Sigma Alpha Journal of Undergraduate Politics would first and foremost like to acknowledge all those individuals and institutions which make the publication of this journal possible semester after semester and year after year. The journal has continued to grow in terms of submissions, quality, and prestige. Admissions to the Spring 2014 edition were both vast in number and constituted a diverse array of topics. We greatly appreciate all those who have submitted their work to the journal in hopes of being published. The articles published herein exemplify a high quality sample of the types of undergraduate research being conducted across the country.

Although the publication is a completely student-run endeavor, the efforts of the student Editorial Board are guided and supported by a number of individuals and institutions which we would like to thank. First, we would like to thank the Pi Sigma Alpha Executive Council and Executive Committee whose vision and financial support has maintained the quality and direction of the journal. Second, we would like to thank the faculty advisory board: the thorough and constructive reviews provided by the members of this board have ensured the articles published herein meet a consistent standard of quality. Finally, we extend tremendous thanks to Editorial Board Faculty Advisors Laura Landolt and Terri Towner, who have clocked countless hours to ensure the integrity of the journal continues to exceed the standards of excellence set by the editors of its previous editions.

The Editorial Board at Oakland University is proud to present the Spring Edition which contains a well-rounded set of articles with varied methodological approaches and topical matter. The publishing process for the Spring Edition followed a relatively smooth path from submission to publication, and the Nu Omega Chapter and Oakland University wish the readers of this edition a similarly enjoyable time.

Best, The Editors

Submission of Manuscripts The journal accepts manuscripts from undergraduates of any class and major.

Members of Pi Sigma Alpha are especially encouraged to enter their work. We strive to publish papers of the highest quality in all areas of political science. Generally, selected manuscripts have been well-written works with a fully developed thesis and strong argumentation stemming from original analysis. Authors may be asked to revise their work before being accepted for publication.

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Table of Contents Historical Legacies and Informal Institutions in Russia’s Economic Transition (1991-1998)

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The Impact of Political Culture on State Recycling Rates: A Test of Elazar’s Typology

26

The United States’ Role in the Construction of International Small Arms Control

46

La Educación para la Liberación:The Chilean Student Movement in 2011

Clara Maeder Bates College

67

Aleksandr Fisher Temple University

Alicia Beattie University of Minnesota, Morris

Isabel Bryan Georgia College & State University

7

Historical Legacies and Informal Institutions in Russia’s Economic Transition (1991-1998) Aleksandr Fisher Temple University In the early 1990s Russia transitioned from a state-controlled to a market-oriented economy.

In the process, Russia experienced a dramatic economic downturn including falling GDP, skyrocketing inflation, rapid increases in crime and corruption, and falling living standards. Russia’s historical legacy, including the structure of the Soviet economy, enabled the continuity of the Soviet-era political elite, making a successful transition to market capitalism exceedingly difficult in the short-run. Political elites utilized informal institutions inherited from the Soviet era such as paternalistic managerial practices, the barterization of the economy and client-patron relationships to hinder formation of formal market institutions and impede Russia’s economic transformation. These informal institutions were both remnants of Soviet practices, as well as contemporary adaptations by the weak Russian state in the 1990s. The interplay between path dependent and rational informal institutions points to the need to blend rational choice institutionalism and historical institutionalism.1 Introduction When asked about the consequences of Russia’s economic transition in the 1990s, Anatoly Chubais, the chief architect of privatization in Russia, stated, “Have you ever watched a birth? It’s a painful and bloody process. But it results in something wonderful: new life!”.2 In the early 1990s Russia transitioned from a state-controlled to a market-oriented economy. Russia’s economic transformation was largely a disaster due to the dramatic economic downturn, with GDP falling by 40%, hyperinflation reaching over 2,500%, crime and corruption dramatically increasing, and personal incomes falling by half from 1991 to 1998 (Klein et al. 2001, 4-18). Rather than bring economic growth, Russia’s economic reform enriched a handful of insider elites at the expense of millions of Russian citizens.

In explaining post-Soviet developments, academics over-emphasized the formal institutions that are necessary for creating market capitalism, and

failed to acknowledge the role of informal institutions and historical continuity, which are critical to understanding Russia’s unique transition. Neoliberal perspectives (Aslund 2013; Gibson et al. 2008; Lavigne 2000) attribute the failure of transition to Russia’s inability to implement the necessary neoliberal reform package including rapid price liberalization, quick privatization, and a stable macroeconomic environment. These scholars argue that countries that followed the neoliberal reform package were more successful in their transition to market capitalism.

Gradualist perspectives (Marangos 2003; Marangos 2005; Murrell 1993) point to the essential role of the state in any major transformation and blame neoliberal polices for Russia’s economic collapse.3 Some scholars assert that Russia is a normal country for its level of economic development (Shleifer and Trisman 2004). Pekka Sutela (2012) argues that Russia’s ‘normalcy’ is heavily determined by which factors scholars study. However comparison between

8 Russia and the other BRIC countries4 reveal that Russia has poorer corporate governance and a quantitatively and qualitatively inferior economic regulatory system (Robinson 2013, 196). Steven Rosefielde (2005) critiques Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman’s categorization of Russia as a normal country by stating that “avaricious insiders use networking to obtain underpriced resources from the state, and exert market power. They act as Muscovite lords, overseeing the operation of the Czar’s domains at his sufferance, coercing vassals and others unprotected by the rule of law” (7). While government initiatives made Russia look capitalist and democratic, it was actually a hybrid, authoritarian regime.5 Given this debate, what explains Russia’s botched transition to a market economy in the 1990s?

This paper asserts that Russia’s historical legacy, including the structure of the Soviet economy, enabled the continuity of the Soviet-era political elite, making a successful transition to market capitalism exceedingly difficult in the short-run. I argue that the political elite used informal institutions from the Soviet era such as client-patron relationships, paternalistic managerial practices, and the barterization of the economy to hinder the formation of formal market institutions. Studying Russia’s initial economic conditions and informal market institutions allows scholars and observers to better understand not only Russia’s transition in the 1990s, but also Russia’s current economic system and its de facto institutions.

By combining elements of rational choice institutionalism (Shepsle 2006) and historical institutionalism (Pierson and Skocpol 2002; Thelen 1999), I explain how informal institutions can be both historically path dependent6, as well as efficient tools for structuring economic activity in Russia in the 1990s. In essence, “both norms and rational

calculation motivate action in difference contexts” (Knight 1992, 14). This institutional approach provides valuable insight into how states and markets interact in the transition process; how free markets affect the consolidation of democracy; the role of path dependency during transition; and how economic processes affect political outcomes in transitioning hybrid regimes.

Section II frames the debate over Russia’s market transition, which is dominated by the dispute between shock therapy proponents, gradualist supporters, adherents of the cultural argument and democracy advocates. Section III argues that the role of Russia’s historical legacy, including initial economic conditions and the structure of the Soviet economy, was crucial in determining policy choice.

It also includes a brief section of comparable cases to illustrate that Russia faced larger economic hurdles than countries such as Poland or China. Section IV explains how initial economic conditions enabled the Soviet-era political elite to capture major state firms and use informal institutions, such as client-patron relationships and paternalistic behavior, to impede the formation of formal market institutions. The conclusion reiterates how Russia’s historical legacy and the role of informal institutions are integral to understanding not only Russia’s transition in the 1990s, but also its current political regime.

Russia’s Transition: Competing Explanations The most common arguments for the failure of market capitalism in Russia focus on: 1) the inadequacy of the neoliberal model; 2) the failure of Russia’s reformers to adhere to the neoliberal model; 3) Russian cultural incompatibility with capitalism; and 4) the necessity of democratization prior to the implementation of economic reforms. However, these

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics explanations are either limited by focusing on the wrong set of variable or they lack empirical evidence.

This section provides evidence on the shortcomings of each of these previous explanations for the failure of Russia’s transition to market capitalism.

Shock Therapy v. Gradualism

Proponents of shock therapy argued that only a drastic break from the old communist economic system, including rapid liberalization and privatization program, macroeconomic stabilization, the destruction of trade barriers, the opening of the country to free trade, the ending of government subsidies to firms and a conservative monetary policy would allow markets to successfully develop. Neoliberals asserted that these economic policies would restore economic growth and create proper market institutions, including strong property rights and stable laws. In addition, a quick transition would create a smaller window of opportunity for powerful interest groups to usurp the transition process and corrupt it for their own personal benefit (Aslund 2013).

Critics of shock therapy urged the creation of proper market institutions prior to radical liberalization and privatization. Gradualists pointed to the role the state plays in protecting property rights and in creating a stable legal framework in successful market economies. With those institutions lacking in Russia, the gradualists argued that any rapid transformation of the Russian economy would be beset with chaos and instability. Additionally, gradualists criticized the neoliberal understanding of human incentives and behavior, which they argued is not based on reality, but rather on an outdated neoclassical economic model (Skharatan and Yastrebov 2013, 372).

An in-depth analysis of Russia’s economic transition in the 1990s reveals that both sides

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presented oversimplified models of Russia’s transformation. The shock therapists presented a simplified neoliberal prescription for Russia’s economic situation that did not take into account inherited economic handicaps, inveterate institutions that conflicted with free market goals, and a political elite that did not fully embrace economic and political reform. Gradualists took an ahistorical analysis of the role of the Russian state in transition. The gradualist perspective understood that the role of the state is vital in the economic transformation from socialism to capitalism. However, there was little understanding of the capabilities and the historical role of the Russian state (Lavigne 2000). Russian citizens’ lack of trust in the state, due to its history of oppression and rentseeking, makes it difficult to assert that the state is a force for positive reform in Russia. In fact, the neoliberal criticism of the gradualist approach, namely, the increased opportunity for rent-seeking, greater inequality, and subsidies for favored firms all came into fruition (Aslund 2013). Russia did indeed undertake a ‘gradual’ transition to a market economy, but not in the way envisioned by gradualist economists. Rather than debate which policies Russian reformers should have chosen, it is critical to examine which policies were available to Russia.

Cultural Incompatibility In addition to the shock therapy v. gradualism debate, scholars have used culture to explain Russia’s lack of market institutions. They assert that culture evolves gradually and market behavior is as much social as it is economic. Therefore, Russia could not adopt the proper institutions necessary for market capitalism. Russia’s collectivist culture, which embraced an active state and egalitarianism, was incompatible with capitalist culture, which is built

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on self-interested behavior, personal responsibility, free market competition, merit-oriented rewards and entrepreneurship (Pejovich 2003, 350). Market behavior and values must evolve slowly and neoliberal models did not consider how cultural norms can subvert formal institutions. Traditions that conflict with the culture of market capitalism add a high transaction cost in the enactment of reforms, thereby slowing economic growth (Pejovich 2003, 356). By influencing Russian values, identity and perception of their own history, culture serves as a crucial element in Russian citizens’ understanding of politics (Denton 2006).

However, excessive reliance on the cultural explanation leads to “lazy scholarship” (Gel’man 2004, 1024). Simply arguing that market institutions cannot develop due to an incompatible culture, and that a compatible culture cannot develop due to improper institutions, leads to a fatalistic argument that Russia was doomed to failure before it even attempted transition. While path dependency, including inherited institutions from the Soviet Union, is a serious obstacle for Russia’s transition, merely studying Russian culture is insufficient in explaining the failures of transition.7 Most importantly, much of the empirical evidence does not substantiate the cultural argument.

James Gibson finds that market and democratic values do not greatly differ between Russians and Americans.

Rather than culture, support for markets stems from factors such as education, age, commitment to democracy and satisfaction with the economy.

The young and well-educated are usually more supportive of pro-market reforms (Gibson 1996, 966).

Additionally, there is little evidence that shows the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideology on the Russian people.8 Lastly, the success of market economies in many Asian countries, such as South Korea and

Taiwan, undermines the argument that cultures with little experience with capitalism cannot build a market economy.

Democratic Deficit

Another common explanation for the failure of market institutions to stick was the government’s lax implementation of democratic institutions. Scholars argue that if democratic reforms were successful, they could have helped consolidate market institutions (Aslund 1997, 12). Democracy has a positive correlation with economic liberalization, which in turn leads to higher economic growth (Fidrmuc 2003). While democracy is not a precondition for high economic growth, it may have a positive influence by fostering liberalization. Some economists show that the initial degree of democratization is an important determinant of the success of economic reforms (Džunić 2006, 96). Comparative analysis of Eastern Europe provides evidence that the European Union (EU), through the promotion of democracy and a stable legal infrastructure, may have fostered a more successful economic transition among Central and Eastern European countries (Aslund 2013, 10).

Although the democratic reform argument has some saliency, the empirical evidence is mixed or inverse in the relationship between democracy and market institutions. Some empirical evidence shows that a market economy is a prerequisite for democracy, not the other way around (Hedlund 2008, 189).

Additionally, although democracy may be necessary in a successful market transition, it is insufficient.

Although this paper does not disregard the importance of democracy as a means to encourage the creation of more efficient market institutions, it contends that alone, it is an insufficient factor.

Merely studying the debate between shock

Russia’s Economic Transition therapists and gradualists, the role of culture and the effect of democratic reforms fails to take a holistic analysis of Russia, which is crucial in understanding Russia’s transition to a market economy. First, I argue that the debate over policy is misguided, since the policy options available to Russia were largely predetermined due to macroeconomic constraints. However, unlike previous papers, I analyze contemporary micro-level behavior as well as macro-level historical influences through my examination of Russian informal institutions. These informal institutions are “socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated, and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels” (Helmke and Levitsky 2004, 726). Alena Ledeneva presents her own framework by looking at informal practices in Russia, which she defines as “regular sets of players’ strategies that infringe on, manipulate, or exploit formal rules and that make use of informal norms and personal obligations for pursuing goals outside the personal domain” (2006, 22).

Rather than simply examine shared norms or values, which fall into a deterministic cultural argument that I rejected above, informal institutions involve shared expected outcomes which, while influenced by culture, are not synonymous with it (Helmke and Levitsky 2004, 728). Thomas Christiansen and Christine Neuhold find that “culture as a whole does not determine individual actions in the same (concrete) way that informal institutions do” (2012, 50). Client-patron relationships, paternalistic managerial behavior and barterization are informal institutions that constrain individual behavior and determine how most economic exchanges are performed.

The rest of this paper analyzes the interaction between Russia’s historical legacies including its

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inherited, uncompetitive macroeconomic structure and a political elite hostile to comprehensive reforms who used informal institutions to impede economic transition. One must examine historical path dependent legacies as well as elite incentives to understand why elites used informal institutions and practices in the 1990s to undermine the creation of formal market institutions. Through my examination of Russia’s informal institutions, I better blend the fields of rational choice institutionalism and historical institutionalism.

Historical Legacies Any thorough analysis of Russia’s transition must take into account the influence of historical legacies on the new Russian state. Seven decades of central planning created deep structural limitations in Russia. The Russian Federation inherited the defunct structure of the centrally-planned Soviet economy, which included weak trade relationships, the breakdown of state and legal apparatus, and the inability to compete in the world economy (Hedlund 2008; Myant and Drahokoupil 2011).

Russia’s economy was predominantly focused on heavy industry, and could not export its industrial goods due to higher production costs and inferior quality. Soviet industries were also highly inefficient due to soft budget constraints that caused a wasteful use of resources (Robinson 2013, 18). Put simply, Russia did not have the proper physical capital or outside investment to produce the goods that the global market wanted. This was largely a result of the over-industrialization and militarization of the Soviet economy. Such macroeconomic restraints could not be overcome overnight and would require years of active restructuring.

Russia’s transformation included eliminating

12 output in non-competitive industries before transferring them to competitive firms, which resulted in a drastic and unnecessary decrease in output (Popov 2007, 9). The static nature of physical capital in Soviet firms made a quick transfer from competitive to noncompetitive firms impossible. Many firms lost output, with light industries experiencing the greatest output decline (Popov 2007, 10). Due to the chaotic business climate, competitive industries were constrained by lack of capital and low levels of potential investment (Popov 2007, 12). Additionally, an influx of foreign goods did not give Russian small businesses a chance to develop a healthy commodity market. These initial conditions ultimately limited the role of policy, since policy was so heavily constrained by the economic circumstances inherited from the Soviet Union.

Privatization in Russia was also heavily constrained by the initial macroeconomic conditions (Debardeleben 1999; McFaul 1995). Privatization was seen as essential in transition due to its supposed economic benefits in increasing the efficiency of firms.

The major obstacles to efficient and fair privatization were the executives’ de facto property rights over their firms. Managers had received de facto ownership in June 1987, when Gorbachev attempted to boost the productivity of Russian firms by promoting individual ownership and competition (Randall 2001, 60). It was in the political interest of the Yeltsin administration to appease these managers, who held enough financial resources to create political turmoil if they did not get their way (Maw 2003; McFaul 1995). Western neoliberal reformers did not anticipate the economic and political strength of the de facto owners of firms in Russia and their role in lobbying for protectionist policies and weaker formal property rights. As a consequence, privileged managers formed monopolies, which resulted in the obstruction of new firms from entering the market (Marangos 2005, 75).

Furthermore, ties to the government protected Russian firms from competition, allowing them to continue to function under a soft-budget constraint and produce inferior quality goods.

Due to the vast amount of privatization Russia was required to undertake, and insider influence in the privatization process, over two-thirds of firms in 1993 remained in the hands of insiders. This twothirds chose the method of privatization that allowed insiders to control 51% of the shares in their former firms (McFaul 1995, 210). One major consequence of this method of privatization was the perversion of incentives away from maximizing profit and the intimidation of foreign direct investment in Russian firms, which could have proved beneficial to Russia’s transformation.9 Rather than focusing the debate on which policy options Russian reformers chose, it is imperative to determine why policymakers chose the speed of liberalization and privatization that they did. Vladimir Popov finds that non-policy factors, including initial conditions, determined 60% of the difference in economic performance, making the impact of liberalization largely insignificant (2000, 5). Strength of institutions, rather than the speed of reforms, heavily determined the success of economic reform. Popov’s regression analysis of Central and Eastern European countries and Russia reveals that the coefficient of liberalization is largely insignificant and in many cases negative, meaning that liberalization had a detrimental effect on economic recovery and growth (2000, 9).

The speed of liberalization was largely irrelevant in Russia due to the massive role initial economic conditions played in determining the possible policy options (Heybey and Murrell 1999).

Russia’s initial conditions, including repressed inflation, monetary overhang before deregulation of prices, trade dependence, over-industrialization, per-

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics capita income, and extensive militarization largely determined Russia’s policy options (Popov 2000, 10).

Preoccupied with the production of industrial goods, Russia could not compete with superior Western goods, making their large industrial capabilities a handicap to reform rather than an advantage.

Comparative Cases Reformers’ attempt to transpose the same economic theories on Russia that they had applied in Central and Eastern European countries illustrates their failure to acknowledge the drastic historical and structural differences between Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. These important factors include size of the country undergoing reforms, strength of social networks, prospects for EU membership, and the country’s history with capitalist development. These differences between Russia and Central and Eastern Europe illustrate that an ahistorical approach to reform misses several important factors that influence the transition process (Robinson 2013).

For example, Poland, unlike Russia, had stronger social networks including the Catholic Church and the Solidarity movement that pushed for more substantial reform through grassroots organizations. Meanwhile, Russia’s reform was led by the former Soviet political elite, who had an incentive to keep Russia in a state of partial economic reform (Hellman 1998). Additionally, one must not forget the massive size difference between Poland and Russia, which makes any coordinated economic or political reform much more difficult due to the greater heterogeneity in interests. Larger countries, like Russia, must also expend more resources developing their infrastructure and coordinating communication, thus complicating the reform process (Roland 2002).

Poland’s economy was substantially less reliant

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on central planning than Russia’s economy, allowing for a more organic return to market capitalism (Robinson 2013, 29). Poland featured a market economy before Soviet rule, and Polish firms had more experience with private ownership and production prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union; both factors allowed for an easier transition. Russia did not have any history with capitalism and its socialist system was an endogenous institution that the majority of the people accepted. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Poland enjoyed the prospect of EU membership, which provided internal incentives to create proper market and state institutions due to the massive economic benefit of joining the EU (Aslund 2013; Myant and Drahokoupil 2011; Roland 2002).

Some scholars also compare China to Russia and assert that China’s more gradual reform was the reason for its success (Kotz 1999). However, closer analysis reveals that initial conditions were fundamental in determining the different reform paths the two countries took. For example, China began its reforms without any monetary overhang and low levels of distortion in its monetary markets, which helped restrain inflation and created more favorable conditions for economic growth (De Melo et al. 2001).

Even David Kotz acknowledges that there were major “differences in initial conditions between Russia and China”, which included “a much lower level of per capita income, a much larger share of agriculture in total employment (71 per cent vs. 13 per cent for Russia), a much more limited social safety net, and a more decentralized economy and political structure” (1999, 11).

The difference in transition paths in Russia and China can also be partially explained by state capacity.

Due to more optimal initial economic conditions, China was able to promote a duel track reform process that allowed the state to undertake active

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administrative reform, align “bureaucratic incentives at all levels with growth and development objectives”, and enhance “enterprise and local autonomy while preserving the capacity of the centre to exercise control” (Miller and Tenev 2007, 543). Russia, on the other hand, underwent economic reform with a collapsing state apparatus that did not provide the proper institutional framework for a healthy transition, and enabled Russian elites to create informal institutions to strip state assets for personal gain.

Informal institutions also played an influential role in China’s economic transformation (Tsai 2007).

While in Russia these informal practices impeded the implementation of market reform, China’s economic entrepreneurs used adaptive informal institutions to promote market-oriented behavior that eventually allowed for the legalization of the private sector (Tsai 2007, 49). Why did informal institutions reinforce market behavior in China, while undermining them in Russia? The answer largely lies in the types of informal institutions that Chinese and Russian citizens promoted, and the strength of the state in the two transitioning regimes.

Given the weak Russian state, Russian elites did not use informal methods of doing business to promote market behavior but rather to restrict competition, drive up prices and maintain their privilege. In China, economic entrepreneurs and midlevel managers (not necessarily elites) used adaptive informal institutions to promote market activity and allow ordinary individuals to gain more privilege and opportunity. Rather than hindering formal market institutions, the adaptive informal institutions used

by Chinese entrepreneurs paved the way for legal acceptance of private property (Tsai 2007, chaps. 3).

As these comparative cases show, Russia’s initial economic conditions heavily steered the direction of

economic reforms, but they were not the only factors that determined Russia’s reform trajectory. In order to fully understand Russia’s transition, it is imperative to examine how political elites reacted to Russia’s economic transformation under poor initial economic conditions, and what incentives they faced to use formal and informal market institutions. By examining the historical legacy of informal institutions in Russia, and elites’ rational incentives to use these informal institutions, scholars can obtain a better understanding of the dynamics of the Russian transition.

Political Elite and Informal Institutions While initial economic conditions made transition exceedingly difficult, Russia’s economic and political elite did not facilitate the implementation of economic reforms. In Russia, elites ensured that the government would not be able to pass comprehensive economic reform in order to maintain the wealth they had accumulated during the turbulent transition in the early 1990s (Hellman 1998). Elite pursuit of self-enrichment was a leading factor for the failure of market reforms and proved to be a handicap to the state’s attempt to establish formal market institutions.

Unlike Poland’s transition to market capitalism, Russia’s transition was marked by a low turnover of political elite (Hanson 1997; Marangos 2005; Robinson 2013; Schjodt and Svendssen 2002). These political elites brought with them old Soviet values, disdain for comprehensive economic reforms, and Soviet practices of doing business, which were harmful to the development of healthy market institutions. Lawrence King (2002) notes that the Russian bureaucracy was not pushed out of power in the transition, but actually led reforms in order to transform their political power into economic power. In fact, by 1993 Russia had twice the number of former nomenklatura (influential

Russia’s Economic Transition Communist bureaucrats) in positions of power than Poland (King 2002, 14).10 Rather than a new elite replacing the old in Russia’s transition, there was a substantial amount of insider control.

Scholars disagree about the nature of the political and economic elite in Russia. David Lane contends that the “composition of the elite under [Yeltsin], while not differing much in its social position and origin, was institutionally and politically different from the previous Gorbachev one” (1996, 547). Despite the political elite’s ability to leverage their former positions of power into political and economic power in the new transitioning regime, Lane stresses there was competition between the new and old political elite (2000, 498).

The conflict between elite adaptation theory and elite competition theory is a useful framework for understanding the competing theories on elites in Russia (Hughes and John 2001). Elite adaptation theory stresses the privatization of the nomenklatura, falling in line with the argument that despite a change in official titles, the Russian elite were largely the same group of people as the old Soviet elite (Gel’man 2012; Hanson 1997; Kryshtanovskaya and White 1996 Marangos 2005; Pejovich 2003). Lane’s theory falls under the elite competition framework, and focuses on the fragmentation of the political and economic elite. It also examines differences in values between the Gorbachev and Yeltsin elite (2000, 674).

While Lane’s theory points to competition and domestic conflict between rivalrous elites, recent research reveals that the new economic elite did not challenge the old political elite in the 1990s. In fact, over 61% of business elites were former nomenklatura¸ emphasizing the close relationship between politics and business (Myant and Drahokoupil 2011, 150). The loans for shares deal in 1995, which allowed for well-

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connected bank executives to acquire valuable shares in lucrative Russian firms in exchange for their loans to the state, is a clear example of the partnership between economic and political elites. The presidential election in 1996 showed the power of the oligarchs in the election of the highly unpopular Boris Yeltsin. In fact, Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky “claimed personally to have secured the re-election of Boris Yeltsin in 1996 through the media campaign he had sponsored” (Kryshtanovskaya and White 1996, 294).

The most crucial way the political elite in Russia undermined reform was by lobbying for weaker protection of property rights (Roland 2002; Varese 1997). Property rights are an essential ingredient in promoting economic growth by ensuring predictability in the market place and greater security in exchanges (Williamson and Kerekes 2011). Elites also pushed for protection against imports and for the continuation of government subsidies (Varese 1997, 580). Government subsidies composed over 22% of Russian GDP in 1993 (McFaul 1995, 161). The energy and agrarian sector of the Russian economy received special benefits from the government due to their political importance, thus undermining competition and creating market imbalance (Schjodt and Svendssen 2002, 190).

Many elites desired weaker formal institutions in order to maintain the power they had established during perestroika (Gel’man 2012). Russian elites profited from weak contract enforcement, since it allowed them to transfer former state property into private control without fear of punishment (Myant and Drahokoupil 2011, 135). The government, which relied on the support of the entrenched political and economic elite, was complicit in keeping Russia in a limbo of economic reform (Hellman 1998; Marangos 2005).11 There was little positive elite pressure for

16 comprehensive market reform and the creation of formal market institutions. Joel Hellman (1998) asserts that it was the winners of initial economic transition that hindered the implementation of comprehensive reforms due to the privileges they accumulated during Russia’s state of partial reform in the early 1990s.

Understanding that their wealth was dependent on distortions inherent in the economy, Russian elites had incentives to undermine more comprehensive reform.

Rather than relying on formal market institutions to promote economic growth, these political elites used informal practices that were remnants of Soviet Union business practices, and new tactics developed in the 1990s, to engage in economic activity. While informal institutions allowed several elite groups to pursue selfenrichment, it undermined the implementation of formal market institutions.

in language, such as the following pairs, illustrate the gap in formal and informal norms: zakonnost’ (legality) and spravedlivost (justice); chestnost (honesty) and poriadochnost’ (propriety), svoboda (freedom) and volia (free will), pravda (rightness) and istina (truth)” (Ledeneva 2006, 26). Legal terms have no connection to moral authority in the Russian language, highlighting the tension between formal and informal notions of right and wrong.

Russian surveys in the 1990s further verify claims that Russians disrespect government laws and lack trust in formal institutions. The New Russia Barometer survey reveals high levels of distrust in formal Russian institutions. The New Russia Barometer II survey reveals that 80% of Russians have little or no trust in the Russian Parliament. Seventy-four percent express little or no trust in the police. One-hundred percent of Russians claim to have little trust in Russian Trust in Formal Institutions political parties. Ninety-nine percent express lack of substantial trust in local government, and 97% express One of the most important factors in lack of trust in the Russian court system (Boeva determining the prevalence of informal institutions and Shironin 1992, 44). A report on a compilation is society’s level of trust in formal institutions. Due to of surveys done throughout the 1990s finds that Russia’s history with oppressive regimes and arbitrary Russians clearly do not trust new political institutions application of law, people generally do not trust the and private firms (Rose 2002, 20). Such low levels of government. Russia’s history consists of a long period of rule under omnipotent czars, who held no regard for trust in such important institutions may explain why Russians turn to informal institutions. laws or individual rights, leading to distrust between While the Russian lack of trust in the society and the state. Life under the Soviet Union did state is largely a result of historical circumstances, little to change this relationship, since laws were often Russians reaffirmed their distrust due to the state’s applied discriminately and for the benefit of those in undependability during the early 1990s. Promised power. a quick recovery and prosperity, the Russian people The Russian legal system is one based on were taken aback at sharp increases in unemployment fear, which breeds disrespect for the government and hyperinflation that shook their country, resulting and delegitimizes its laws (Ledeneva 2006, 111). A in a lack of confidence in the formal institutions dichotomy in the Russian language indicates that established in the 1990s (Džunić 2006). Russian people legal authority and moral authority are two distinct have a paradoxical relationship with the state, with lack entities in the Russian psyche: “Dichotomies found

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics of trust being one defining feature and an excessive reliance being the other. Put simply, the Russian people do not trust their government, but expect it to solve most of their problems (Kääriäinen 1997, 28).

This lack of trust makes building rule of law from above inefficient, as long as informal institutions are not altered (Gel’man 2012, 299). Alexander Libman comes to a similar conclusion: “Attempts to get rid of stringent regulation ‘from above,’ and in so doing, to lessen the intensity of activity in the shadow sector, do not lead to success since the people do not trust the state. Harsh measures to counteract the illegal economy do not produce results either and only fuel mistrust, and stimulate the desire to get out of the line of vision of the state” (2007, 21). Informal institutions, which take the place of formal institutions in circumstances when the state is too weak or mistrusted, are the real drivers of incentives.

Informal Practices – Clientelism One key informal practice that Russian elites used to undermine the implementation of economic reforms was krugovaia poruka, which Alena Ledeneva translates as “collective responsibility” (2006, 91).

Although this translation is technically accurate, a better translation of this term would emphasize Russian avoidance of responsibility. This practice involves mutual cover-up, by a community, for the illegal affairs of an individual (Ledeneva 2006, 92-93).

The root of this practice can be traced back to prerevolutionary Russia, when the government taxed communities rather than individuals. This resulted in the rise of personal relationships and the use of informal methods for the implementation of justice, rather than seeking legal retribution through the state.

Krugovaia poruka is now primarily used by Russian business elites. Russian entrepreneurs have

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become experts at manipulating formal institutions and using personalistic relationships in order to survive in an unstable business environment. These patron-client relationships ensure that one must know someone in order to successfully conduct business.

This lessens the degree of impersonal economic exchange, while promoting corrupt practices that undermine healthy market behavior.

Additional informal practices include creating spin-off firms to launder money. Executives often also use deceased individuals or mothers to open fraudulent firms in order to avoid punishment (Ledeneva 2006, 117). These methods help explain why fraud has increased over four times from 1992 to 1995 (Varese 1997, 587). Additional tricks like double bookkeeping, under-reporting, and false documentation are standard practices directly inherited from the Soviet era (Ledeneva 2006, 117). Such shadow practices allow for the emergence of a new Russian proverb: “If a company has a profit, it has a bad accountant” (Ledeneva 2006, 140).

Paternalistic Managerial Behavior Another area in which inherited Soviet values and practices became an obstacle for reform was in the behavior of firm managers. While many managers stole assets from their firms for personal gain, others engaged in paternalistic behavior that slowed down the implementation and effectiveness of privatization.

The unique relationship between local governments and state firms created an environment in which firms relied on government to provide subsidies and turn a blind eye to legal infractions, while firms provided social services that the government was unable to provide (Dyker 2012; King 2002; Myant and Drahokoupil 2011; Randall 2001).

This paternalistic relationship arose during

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the Soviet period. Large companies were usually responsible for providing medical care, housing, and daycare for their workers (Millar 1997, 365). The state’s inability to provide an effective social safety net for workers during the economic depression of the 1990s further reinforced paternalistic relationships between workers and their managers. As the economy deteriorated, managers were forced to fire workers and cut benefits, but not before they had delayed the intended production and efficiency boost that firm restructuring and privatization was intended to create.

Managerial behavior was quite difficult to change and was understudied by neoliberal reformers (Aslund 2013, 43). The economic assumption was that once firms were privatized and prices liberalized, managers would seek to maximize profit. They would utilize a hard budget constraint and promote competition and increased production. However, paternalistic attitudes and ignorance of market mechanisms led many managers to operate as if they were still under a soft-budget constraint and to provide social services to their workers that they could not afford.

On the surface it seems that the managers engaged in irrational economic behavior by maintaining excessive levels of employment, engaging in rent maximization and utilizing personal networks rather than markets (Lane 2000, 498-99). However, the lack of a coherent tax code in the early 1990s led to an inefficient allocation of resources, evasion of taxes, and little incentive to invest (Varese 1997, 586).12 Additionally, there was a tipping point in tax evasion.

When enough firms stopped paying taxes, the tax burden increased on those who abided by the laws, which forced previously law-abiding firms to evade taxes in order to stay in business (Varese 1997, 596).

The practices mentioned above were perfectly rational

if one understands the chaotic economic environment of the 1990s and the inherited paternalistic values of Russian managers. Barter becomes equally rational if one understand the conditions of the Russian state in the 1990s.

Barterization The barterization of the Russian economy was a consequence of hyperinflation, the high cost of working capital, the lack of trust in banks, debt arrears, tax evasion, the absence of a system of civil laws, and a breakdown in trust of economic institutions.

This serves as further evidence of the power of informal practices and the comfortable nature by which Russians operate in the shadow economy (King 2002, 136-37). Because capitalism requires the commodification of goods, barter is essentially harmful to the development of capitalism and incompatible with long-term economic growth.

Most firms utilized barter exchange in one way or another due to a lack of liquidity and to avoid taxation. This led to a situation where bartering composed over 70% of economic exchanges in the early 1990s (Burawoy 2001). In 1992 barter in coke supplies went from 8% to 58%, 3% to 25% in coal supplies, and 8% to 34% in metal supplies. By studying electricity consumption demands, Sutela predicts that 41% of the Russian economy consisted of shadow activity in 1994 (2012, 16). Moreover if one takes a purely formal definition of shadow activity, 100% of the Russian economy could be categorized as part of the shadow economy (Ledeneva 2006, 116). While barter is a rational response to the negative economic environment of post-communist Russia, it has proven detrimental to the establishment of effective market institutions and long-term economic growth.

Although western policy makers may view

Russia’s Economic Transition bartering as purely illegal activity, reinforcing the notion that the Russian economy is a den of corruption, Russians view barterization as a survival tactic. Poor government policies and trade fragmentation that occurred with the collapse of the Soviet Union forced many firms to engage in barter to survive (Ledeneva 2006, 118). With the government historically serving as an agent of repression from above, informal institutions including clientelism, blat13 and barter served as survival mechanisms for the general population (Gel’man 2004). As mentioned above, this led to a vicious cycle of tax evasion and corruption, which hindered the state’s ability to provide the legal and physical infrastructure to improve the impersonal economy and move away from barter. While serving as a means to promote market behavior in an environment of weak state enforcement, barterization of the Russian economy ultimately became an obstacle to the creation of market institutions.

Role of the Weak and Collapsing State Informal institutions such as clientelism, paternalistic managerial behavior and barter thrive in an environment where formal institutions are weak or collapsing. To measure institutional collapse one can examine the increase of the shadow economy, the decline of government revenue, the inability of the state to deliver public goods and an efficient regulatory framework, poor enforcement of property rights, bankruptcies, contract violations, lack of law and order, increased crime rates and a lack of trust in business and government institutions (Popov 2000, 26). The weak new Russian state was unable to combat the inherited informal institutions that had gained acceptance in the Russian mentality throughout their history (Sutela 2012). To understand why informal

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methods of doing business and maintaining power became prevalent in Russia, one must not only understand the history of the Soviet Union, but also the fragile nature of the Russian state in the 1990s and its inability to provide order.

Already in the 1980s, the Russian state experienced greater difficulty providing social services and public goods. The economic chaos and trade fragmentation that occurred during the collapse of the Soviet Union left the state with even less resources to provide order and a stable business environment.

With the neoliberal emphasis on reduced government, there was a push to lessen government involvement in the economy in order to let the free market reign.

State debt made up 48% of GDP, creating an unstable macroeconomic environment, fueling hyperinflation and distrust in the monetary economy (Millar 1997, 360). Massive government debt forced the cutback of government programs, and ordinary government financing on public goods dropped to one-third its previous level (Popov 2000, 28). Gradualist economists like Stiglitz (1999) and Kolodko (2000) emphasized the necessity of strong state institutions for a market economy to function properly, and the failure of neoliberal reformers to recognize this fact. However, although neoliberal policies did not help the situation, state institutions were in free-fall well before the 1990s.

By utilizing the rational choice model and studying the different transaction costs of informal and formal institutions, one can better understand the weakness of the Russian state and the process by which informal actors rose to fill the void of the state in providing public goods. Timothy Frye argues that due to the weakness of the Russian state, brokers and bureaucrats created their own informal institutions to lessen the transaction costs of doing business (2000). Although private actors could step

20 in to create their own institutions, he finds that these private organizations were not a perfect substitute for a strong state. Private enforcement agencies allocated extra resources to maintain order and to compete with rival private enforcement groups (Frye 2000, 147).

Informal institutions have a paradoxical nature: they facilitate market exchanges in the short-term, while simultaneously deterring the formation of long-term formal market institutions.

The weak state and lack of trust in formal institutions are not the only reasons for the prevalence of informal institutions and practices in Russia’s economy. Informal institutions are effective as long as they uphold the elite interests (Gel’man 2004, 1036).

Because the Russian political and economic elite benefited from clientelism, a barter economy and lack of personal responsibility in their business practices, they encouraged these informal institutions at the expense of alternative formal institutions. According to Jack Knight, these informal institutions are the product of a group seeking optimal distributional gains (1992, 18). It is only when elites realized they needed more formal rules to protect property rights, which occurred in the 2000s under President Putin, did the influence of informal practices and institutions begin to wane.

Overall, the study of informal institutions helps blend the fields of rational choice institutionalism and historical institutionalism. As Hellman argued, it was the winners of partial economic reform in Russia who hindered implementation of comprehensive economic reforms (1998). However, he does not explain how elite groups hindered the formation of market institutions.

I show that there is a clear historical legacy to the informal practices that Russian elites used, as many of these practices and norms were inherited from the Soviet Union. However, given the economic circumstances of the country and the fragility of the

Russian state in the 1990s, informal institutions were also the most effective methods of doing business.

Therefore, it was in the rational self-interest of Russian managers and political elites to promote these informal institutions for short-term economic and political gain, at the expense of formal market institutions that may have provided more long-term benefits.

Informal institutions are slow to change as they reflect deep-rooted historical practices (North 1990, 44). However, responsible politicians must take it upon themselves to build formal protection of property rights, rule of law, and a less extractive government in order to create a legitimate state.

Without this legitimacy, Russians will continue to look to informal institutions to solve their economic and political problems. Unfortunately, Russia lacked such responsible politicians in the 1990s, and instead had an economic and political elite who used these informal practices to amass great personal wealth.

Conclusions This paper argues that the standard shock therapy versus gradualism paradigm is a poor framework for understanding Russia’s transition to market capitalism. Russia’s inherited, uncompetitive economic system delayed, deepened and lengthened the Russian economic depression. Abusing their insider position, political and economic elites exacerbated the situation by engaging in rent-seeking behavior, robbing firms of their useful assets, and destabilizing the state’s attempts at building efficient market institutions. In a vicious cycle, inherited economic conditions led to poor behavior by economic and political elites, which reinforced the poor economic conditions that incentivized such behavior in the first place.

Informal institutions, practices and

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics organizations reinforced the negative economic practices engaged in by both elites and ordinary individuals. Informal institutions can be both historically transmitted as well as rationally constructed to frame economic activity in an environment where the state is weak and ineffective.

Many of Russia’s informal institutions and practices were inherited from the Soviet Union, and in some cases, pre-Soviet times. However, some informal institutions were newly adopted or reinforced in the 1990s. In many cases, the informal institutions were a product of elites’ attempts to optimize their distribution of Russia’s state resources (Knight 1992).

Russia’s historical legacy, including initial economic conditions combined with the subversive actions of the Russian elite, and affected by informal institutions and practices, proved too much for Russia to overcome. The vicious cycle of these factors resulted in a deep and intense economic depression in the 1990s, and the failure of the establishment and consolidation of efficient market institutions. As initial economic conditions become less and less important as time moves forward, it will be critical to examine the actions of the political and economic elite and the role of informal institutions in determining the future of Russia’s economic and political system.

Endnotes 1 Special thanks to Dr. Sean Yom for all his mentorship during this project, as well as the Diamond Scholar Research Program at Temple University for all their support. I am also grateful to all my other professors at Temple University including Dr. Orfeo Fioretos, Dr. Robin Kolodny, and Dr. Megan Mullin for their guidance and assistance.

2 SPIEGEL Online. “SPIEGEL Interview with Anatoly Chubais: ‘40 Million Russians Are Convinced I’m a

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Scoundrel’.” September 25, 2007, accessed April 26, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/q7xuaub.

3 Christopher Huygen, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Boris Yeltsin and the Failure of Shock Therapy,” Constellations, 2011, accessed October 9, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/pk8bxhy.

4 BRIC countries are rapidly developing capitalist countries including Brazil, Russia, India and China.

5 Christopher Huygen, “One Step Forward”.

6 James Mahoney (2000) defines path dependency as “those historical sequences in which contingent events set into motion institutional patters or event chains that have deterministic properties” (507). In Russia’s case, informal institutions that were developed during the Soviet Union became widely used by political and economic elites during the 1990s.

7 While informal institutions are influenced by culture, they are not synonymous concepts. For more on the difference between culture and informal institutions see Helmke and Levitsky (2004) and Christiansen and Neuhold (2012).

8 The Soviet elite utilized Marxist-Leninist ideology only in times of crisis, such as World War II, in order to legitimize their power or rally support against a common enemy (Dubin 2008, 81).

9 Foreign direct investment proved critical for Poland’s success in restructuring its companies by allowing for outside capital to invest in Polish firms when internal capital was lacking (McFaul 1995, 234).

10 Aslund finds that higher elite turnover in Estonia led to a more effective economic transformation, highlighting the importance of elite turnover in Eastern Europe’s transition (2013, 296).

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11 Such deep connections between economic and political elite were not only present on the national level but also on the local and regional levels.

The fragmentation of the Russian state provided opportunities for Russian regions to grasp political and economic power away from the central government (Hughes and John 2001). The concentration of large firms in several regions granted great political power to managers who were ‘too big to fail.’ Major firms were able to continue to receive major concessions from government officials in exchange for support of political elites during elections. Conversely, the economic elite needed inside connections with political elite to protect them from the arbitrary enforcement of the chaotic legal system. This chain of commitments worked for those at the top of the Russian hierarchy, but proved detrimental to the people who suffered through the economic depression of the 1990s.

12 Only 4% of managers were primarily profit-oriented and Russian managers did not see an obligation to pay taxes (Dyker 2012, 122). This lack of taxation further weakened the fragile state, forcing managers to provide the social services that should have been provided by the government, creating a vicious circle of the entrenchment of these informal practices by managers.

13 A personal system of mutual favors that evolved during the Soviet Union. For more on blat see Ledeneva (1998) and Michailova and Worm (2002).

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The Impact of Political Culture on State Recycling Rates: A Test of Elazar’s Typology Alicia Beattie University of Minnesota, Morris Recycling rates in the United States have generally increased over the past few decades, yet not all states have risen equally to the recycling challenge. The objective of this work is to analyze whether political culture, as measured by Daniel Elazar’s classification of three political subcultures and operationalized by Ira Sharkansky’s linear scale, helps explain state recycling rates. Results exhibit a trend consistent with my hypothesis that moralistic political cultures will have higher recycling rates than individualistic political cultures, but that individualistic political cultures will have higher recycling rates than traditionalistic political cultures. My regression model indicates a weaker role for political culture in explaining state recycling rates compared to other predictor variables including the average landfill tip fee, educational attainment levels, population density, and presence of state container law. In contrast, political culture significantly explains state adoption of a container law, a policy designed to incentivize recycling.

Introduction

There was once a time when worn-out socks were not destined for the trash but the darning pile, when plastic water bottles did not exist, when broken things were always fixed. US history has its roots in household management of waste and an emphasis on reuse and repair. The waste stream we know today is very different from the one prior to the industrial revolution. Nonreturnable glass did not even enter the waste stream until after the 1960s. Plastics made their way into the waste stream in 1971. With the rise of a consumer-driven society, Americans learned to toss things in the trash with little thought as to what happened to it (Vergara and Tchobanoglous 2012).

However, as trash has risen to unprecedented levels, landfills have been filling up, and industries continue to demand exceedingly expensive raw materials, pressure has risen to more sustainably deal with our waste.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States currently recycles about 34.7 percent of its waste.1 Per person, this equates to 1.53 pounds of recycled and composted waste out of 4.40 pounds generated in a day. Trash, or municipal solid waste (MSW), may include a plethora of items such as old refrigerators, grass clippings, food waste, and packaging. Great progress has been made in improving recycling rates, with the rate of recycling at 10% in 1980, 16% in 1990, and 29% in 2000. The EPA places recycling and composting higher on its waste management hierarchy in terms of environmental benefits than combustion with energy recovery, treatment, and disposal of waste.

Benefits of recycling include reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills or incinerators, conserving natural resources, saving energy, preventing pollution, reducing greenhouse gases, and helping create jobs in recycling and manufacturing industries.2 However, while recycling rates for the

Impact of Political Culture on State Recycling Rates nation as a whole have slowly increased, not all areas of the United States respond to the recycling challenge with the same level of enthusiasm. For example, Rocky Mountain states recycle and compost only 11% of their waste, whereas New England states recycle and compost 29% of their waste (Van Haaren, Themelis, and Goldstein 2000).

Given rising national concerns about the sustainability of our natural resources, consumption, energy use, and waste, investigating why recycling rates differ across geographic regions of the United States is of great importance to the future of natural resource management and planning. Greater understanding of the factors contributing to differential recycling rates will help planners design locally adapted strategies based on the particular characteristics of their geographic area.

This study asks whether political culture might play an important role in explaining differential recycling rates across the United States and provide a more cohesive way of thinking about regional recycling rate differences; a role that has not been filled by existing literature. Elazar’s 1966 work on political culture, American Federalism: A View from the States, elucidates how different subcultures of the United States contain different notions about what can be expected from government, the kinds of people involved in politics, and how these ideas are actually carried out by citizens and public officials. These US subcultures are rooted in historical migration patterns, with clusters of like-minded people grouped in geographical areas.

Elazar describes how the United States was founded on two ideas: the marketplace, involving bargaining and self-interest; and the commonwealth, or the idea that people seek to live in a society with the best possible government guided by moral principles.

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Elazar argues that the two concepts of marketplace and commonwealth are embedded in three distinct types of political culture—moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic—that correspond to orderly patterns of settlement representing people of different origins and backgrounds. The moralistic political culture emphasizes the idea of the commonwealth, with government seen as an entity that serves the community. Citizens are expected to actively participate in politics, and government is expected to intervene in economic and social life in order to promote the general welfare.

Individualistic political culture, on the other hand, is rooted in the idea of the marketplace, with government organized to act like a business.

Citizens tend to tolerate higher levels of corruption, government intervention in the community is limited to encouragement of private initiative, and politics is seen as an arena for politicians rather than all citizenry.

In traditionalistic political cultures, characterized by an irresolute conception of the marketplace and elitist notion of the commonwealth, government is viewed as dominated by elites focused on preserving the status quo. The traditionalistic conception of good government is one in which traditions are fostered and any changes are managed in a way that limits upset of the existing regime. Elazar assigned each of the 48 contiguous states a political culture, sometimes including a second, less dominant political culture (1966). His typology is based on census and religious data, used as measures of different origins and backgrounds of citizens, as well as his own personal observations. Elazar continued to update his research on political culture with later editions of his landmark work (1972; 1984), and his typology continues to be addressed within the literature as a useful analytical concept.

28 Using Elazar’s conceptions of political culture, I hypothesize that states with moralistic political cultures will have higher recycling rates than individualistic political cultures, but that individualistic political cultures will have higher recycling rates than traditionalistic political cultures.

This paper first examines existing research explaining differential recycling rates, and then introduces political culture as a variable that could add dimension and explanatory power to the existing discussion.

Next, it explores research that builds on Elazar’s work in characterizing regional subcultures and adding quantitative dimensions. Following this literature review, the paper explains the methodology employed, presents its findings, discusses the results and offers conclusions. State data on recycling rates, Gross State Product (GSP) per capita, educational levels, average landfill tipping fees, population density, and presence or absence of a state container law is used to test the utility of Elazar’s typology in explaining differences in recycling rates across states.

Recycling Literature Explanations concerning differential recycling rates can be divided into four main schools of thought: the way people view their citizenship roles, type of recycling program, demographic factors, and the extent of public participation in the decision-making processes. This section explains the main variables used to explain why recycling rates differ across the United States, and then demonstrates how adding a political culture variable can advance existing analysis.

The first prominent group of research on recycling examines the ways people view their roles as citizens, and how values and beliefs might impact recycling rates. Thomas Kinnaman found that values concerning the environment might play an

important role in whether individuals recycle, even when recycling programs are costly (2000). In a case study of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, a city with a costly mandatory recycling program, citizens reported that they were more likely to recycle because it was good for the environment than because it was their civic duty. This study provides evidence that environmental values may be more important than costs.

Kinnaman’s study relates to the work of McBeth, Lybecker, and Garner on framing, which addresses the dichotomy between environmental reasons and citizenship reasons for recycling (2010).

Students at Idaho State University were given two policy narratives. The first narrative, a duty-based citizenship frame, included statements about recycling as a form of individual responsibility and as an option that made good business sense. The second narrative, an engaged citizenship frame, included statements about recycling as a form of global citizenship, an important way to stop global warming, and as a way to get involved. While this research did not indicate whether one frame or the other was dominant, it showed that framing affected citizens’ acceptance of a policy. Those individuals with a more engaged view of citizenship, who also supported some duty-based frames, strongly supported the engaged recycling frame whereas individuals with a more duty-based frame did not. This study provides evidence that framing of recycling should fit the way individuals view their roles as citizens.

While individual norms may have important influences on recycling, Carlson (2001) and Viscusi, Huber, and Bell (2010) find social norms to be insignificant and argue that making recycling easier or providing economic incentives are far more important for inducing higher recycling rates. Carlson (2001) argues that social norm creation, involving intrinsic

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics satisfaction for doing the right thing or approval from friends and neighbors, is not very effective in solving a problem such as low recycling rates since recycling can be inconvenient and significant effort may be required.

Viscusi, Huber, and Bell (2010), using a 2009 national survey of recycling behavior, hypothesized that individuals would be more likely to recycle if they felt more virtuous or morally superior to their neighbors, based on their own personal norms. They found that in addition to personal norms of pro-environmental behavior, whether citizens consider themselves environmentalists is positively correlated to willingness to recycle. While finding private values and norms about the environment to be important, however, they found social norms to have an insignificant impact on recycling rates. Perception of an external norm for recycling was rarely expressed as important.

Previous studies concerning citizenship values and norms have the advantage of engaging with actual individuals and probing into their personal preferences and worldviews. However, by providing surveys and even introducing the recycling question, bias may be incurred, with respondents giving more thought to recycling than they normally do and possibly changing their responses to what they view as more socially correct. These studies also have limited applicability since they do not take into account demographic differences or examine geographic trends that might help planners better strategize campaigns for increasing recycling rates.

The second major area of research explores types of programs or policies that encourage recycling practices. Carlson (2001) and Viscusi, Huber, and Bell (2010) find that norms may not be enough to dramatically alter recycling rates. Mechanisms proposed to help improve recycling rates include curbside services to increase the convenience of

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recycling, unit ‘Pay-as-You-Throw’ pricing schemes to encourage reduction of trash generation and increase recycling, and community-based recycling grants.

Such programs involve the purchase of approved bags, stickers, or tags; unit pricing of collection bins; or weighing of solid waste at the curb. Because such schemes put a price on quantities of garbage rather than apply a flat rate, citizens have greater incentives to recycle (Callan and Thomas 2006).

In their analysis of two mail surveys of recycling coordinators, Peretz, Tonn, and Folz found that recycling rates are higher in cities with curbside recycling programs (2005). Comparing small and large cities, they found that large cities (greater than 25,000) that imposed sanctions on improper sorting of recyclable materials tended to have higher recycling rates. Small cities (fewer than 25,000) had more success when mandating household participation and imposing a variable fee for pricing on solid waste collection. These findings concerning variable fees fit with the work of Folz and Giles (2002). Using data from a national survey of municipal solid waste managers and recycling coordinators, they found that Pay-as-You-Throw policies have a statistically significant independent effect on the amount of waste disposed per household and lead to a higher recycling rate per household. Similarly, Sidique, Joshi, and Lupi analyzed factors impacting recycling rates of Minnesota counties and found that variable pricing for waste disposal increased recycling rates, in addition to other factors, such as presence of a recycling ordinance and recycling education (2010). They also found that curbside recycling programs combined with drop-off programs help increase recycling rates.

These studies show that recycling systems and policies may play an important role in explaining recycling rates. Like the studies on citizenship values

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and norms, however, they fail to explain why some localities experiment with new recycling policies and encourage changed behavior, while others do not. Political culture adds to the existing literature by helping answer the question of why some states (and not others) lead policy innovation and invest in policy solutions for inducing higher recycling rates.

Even if these studies demonstrate that policies such as Pay-as-You-Throw increase recycling rates, they do not answer the larger question of whether particular characteristics of populations facilitate policy adoption.

In addition to norms and recycling systems, demographic factors are a third possible explanatory variable for differential recycling rates. Peretz, Tonn, and Folz not only identified recycling rate differences based on type of recycling program, but also differences based on demographic variables (2005). They found that higher mean household incomes correlate with higher recycling rates. They also found that recycling rates were higher among non-minority populations in their large cities group.

Folz and Giles (2002) reported similar results, finding significantly greater recycling rates in cities with large white populations. Presence of at least some college education within populations also had a statistically significant independent effect on the amount of waste disposed per household. These studies provide evidence that demographic factors may play a role in explaining differential recycling rates. However, these researchers fail to disaggregate race beyond the simple white/non-white distinction, or consider ethnoreligious influences in their study. Finally, they do not examine what cultural or economic circumstances lead to lower recycling rates among non-white populations.

The fourth school of thought examines relative public participation in decision-making processes to

explain variations in recycling rates. Folz and Hazlett find that recycling rates are highly dependent on policy choice, policy selection process, and implementation (1991). Cities with high recycling rates had involvement from a large number of citizen groups and an open, democratic process for determining what and how to recycle. Peretz, Tonn, and Folz likewise find that cities with the highest recycling participation rates engaged in a process called collaborative learning, in which citizens both internal and external to the policy decision making process were engaged in addressing recycling (2005).

Pellow, Schnaiberg and Weinberg (2000) complement the findings of Folz and Hazlett (1991) and Peretz, Tonn, and Folz (2005) that public participation matters. In a case study of Chicago’s recycling program, they seek to disprove the theory that the “design, performance, and evaluation of processes of production are increasingly based on ecological criteria in addition to economic criteria” (Pellow, Schnaiberg and Weinberg 2000, 1). They describe the transition of Chicago’s recycling programs from management by a conglomeration of environmentally and socially friendly non-profit organizations in the 1970s, to management by a profit-minded corporation in the 1990s that excluded environmental and social considerations in most operational decisions.

Though the City of Chicago appeared democratic in its quest for modernized recycling, holding a Request for Proposals (RFP) in 1990 to begin citywide residential recycling, the RFP was written to target a single contractor, Waste Management.

The resulting Blue Bag program involved serious problems in ecological design such as contamination of recyclables due to breaking bags, a problem since Waste Management combined non-recyclables with

Impact of Political Culture on State Recycling Rates recyclables in pick-up and sorting. Leaders in the recycling community expressed anger that citizens were not involved in the decision-making process, and argued that cost-efficiency was the only criteria in selection of Waste Management. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a legitimate RFP might have prevented Waste Management from being selected, or at least allowed for community stipulations about how the corporation could handle its waste (Pellow, Schnaiberg and Weinberg 2000).

These studies provide evidence that public participation in decision-making impacts support for recycling programs and success. Again, however, they fail to help examine underlying differences among localities that might bring about differences in public participation. Why do some localities have more transparent policy-making systems and high public involvement, while others do not? The failures of Chicago’s Blue Bag program, for example, could be a function of the state’s political culture.

All four research schools provide insights into causes of variation in recycling rates. A significant amount of literature explores how factors such as citizenship values, type of recycling program, demographic characteristics, and public participation in policy-making processes influence recycling rates.

Political culture, however, has not yet been examined in previous research, and may contribute additional explanatory power. For example, some citizens may see recycling as a cheaper alternative than filling up garbage bins, while others may push for improved recycling systems in order to protect the environment.

An improved recycling system might be a function of values, with some citizens having a strong sense of the importance of pressing for needed changes. These beliefs may in turn be predicated upon community characteristics derived from historical migration patterns. Adding political culture as an explanatory

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variable will increase understanding of why recycling rates exhibit spatial differences across the United States.

In comparison to the four main groups of variables researchers use to explain differential recycling rates, a composite political culture variable should offer greater explanatory power by analyzing underlying differences among state populations.

State political culture encompasses how people view their citizenship role and attitudes towards public participation in policy decision-making, historical demographic factors, and demographic factors. Type of recycling programs adopted is likely a product of political culture rather than simply an alternative explanation for differential recycling rates.

Response to and Revisions of Elazar’s Typology Elazar’s work on political culture has been scrutinized and refined over the last few decades in a way that both demonstrates the utility of using Elazar’s work as a tool for understanding social and political phenomena and increases the ability to effectively operationalize the variable. Soon after Elazar wrote his book on American federalism, Sharkansky (1969) examined the empirical usefulness of Elazar’s typology.

Sharkansky investigated whether Elazar’s theory, based on observation, could be converted into a linear scale based on the concepts embodied in Elazar’s three types of political culture. Sharkansky created a scale from one to nine, with moralism given a value of one, individualism a score of five, and traditionalism a score of nine. Sharkansky based these divisions on Elazar’s three central concepts that help differentiate the three types of political culture.

The first concept is political participation, in which moralistic political culture conceives of participation as a duty necessary for maintaining

32 the commonwealth, individualistic political culture engages in participation only when it serves individual self-interest, and traditionalistic political culture leaves participation to the elite. The second concept involves the role of the bureaucracy, in which moralistic political culture favors well-paid, professional bureaucracies, individualistic political culture limits bureaucracy for fear of restricting private business, and traditionalistic political culture opposes bureaucracies.

The third concept is the scope and magnitude of government programs. Moralistic political culture favors new programs and intervention, individualistic political culture minimizes them, and traditionalistic political culture opposes them, unless they are needed for maintaining the status quo.

Sharkansky then tested his scale, based on Elazar’s typology, using twenty-three dependent variables corresponding to the three central concepts pulled out of Elazar’s work. Using coefficients of simple correlation (Pearson’s r), Sharkansky discerned whether traits were associated with his scale and whether the association could be considered consistent with Elazar’s Moralism-IndividualismTraditionalism typology. The dependent variables included measures of voter turnout and generosity of state suffrage regulations, the number and perquisites of government employees, and the magnitude of taxes, expenditures, and public service outputs in the fields of education, highways, and public welfare.

Sharkansky found that 15 of his 23 variables passed tests for statistical significance and that all significant relationships exhibited the direction expected based on Elazar’s description. Sharkansky also introduced the control variables of state socioeconomic status and regional boundaries to see whether the scale still predicted political traits. Sharkansky concluded that his scale was useful for identifying important relationships associated with Elazar’s schema, and that

the relationships have weight independent of socioeconomic factors and regional features. Sharkansky’s study confirms the utility of Elazar’s typology.

Joel Lieske critiques Elazar’s methodology, as well as its utility for explaining differences in political phenomena (1993). Lieske notes that Elazar has been criticized for not using empirical standards, as well as presenting an overly simplistic analysis of subcultures.

Lieske expands upon Elazar’s work with a more complex typology, arguing that the United States can be portioned into ten distinct regional subcultures.

Finding Elazar’s work lacking in statistical rigor, Lieske develops 45 measures based on racial origin, ethnic ancestry, religious affiliation, and social structure, and he argues that political culture can be differentiated down to the county level. Lieske’s survey uses all 3,164 US counties, and draws data from the 1980 census and the 1980 Glenmary survey of US church bodies.

While the 1980 census provides data for racial and ethnic indicators, the Glenmary survey provides religious indicators embracing the 13 largest Christian denominations in the US, as well as conservative and Reform Judaism.

After comparing his typology to Elazar’s using social, political, and policy indicators, Lieske concludes that his measure has greater precision and utility because of its derivation from mathematical algorithms, reflection of current cultural conditions, and focus down to the county rather than state level. In a later study, Lieske examines whether a new measure is needed to reflect more recent cultural changes (2010). He begins by arguing that subcultures have high continuity and persistence because of the nature of ethno-religious socialization and federal democracy.

Groups tend to cluster together, and the tradition of local government embodied in federalism supports a tradition of local democracy. This allows dominant cultural groups to institutionalize social and political

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics preferences of their choice. Lieske argues that while immigration has continued throughout the years, earlier settler groups maintain a dominant position in setting social conventions and transmitting ways of life to future generations.

Lieske finds that regional subcultures have been significantly altered due to cultural changes such as immigration and differential racial and ethnic fertility rates (2010). He develops a new measure based on these changes, again categorizing on the county level, and finds it superior to Elazar’s typology in predicting social and political behavior (Lieske 2010). This study shows that Elazar’s typology still has utility, but that new demographic data must be taken into account. Lieske’s typology is less parsimonious, however, in that it distinguishes among eleven regional subcultures. This limits the utility of his framework for understanding socio-political differences among states.

US demographics and culture have changed considerably since Elazar first developed his typology.

For example, the 2010 census reveals that Hispanic and Asian populations grew fastest during the previous decade. Hispanics and Asians comprised 16% and 5% of the 2010 US population, while African Americans, comprising only 13% of the population, can no longer be considered the dominant minority.3 Despite these changes, however, Elazar’s typology and Sharkansky’s linear scale based on Elazar’s work remain the dominant measures of political culture. It has been successfully operationalized and found to be of high utility in explaining a wide variety of contemporary issues including welfare reform (Mead 2004), support for Obama in the 2008 primaries (Fisher 2011), and ballot access for non-major party candidates (Shock 2008). It has even been used to explain state adoption of renewable portfolio standards (Fowler and Breen 2013), suggesting that the variable of political culture

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might be successfully applied to environmental issues.

Testing the Utility of Elazar’s Typology for Explaining Differences in State Recycling Rates

Political culture has not yet been examined as an explanatory variable for differential recycling rates across the United States. While other studies examine how differences in citizenship roles, type of recycling program, demographic factors, and public participation in recycling policy-making processes influence recycling rates, none of them examine the effects of underlying characteristics of states based on historical migration patterns and political formulations on recycling rates. Elazar’s typology helps explain why differences in phenomena exhibit different tendencies on a spatial scale. This is essential for understanding how to best approach existing recycling programs, target areas for reform, and frame messages. This section provides an explanation of my hypothesis and overall research design.

As noted above, I hypothesize that states with moralistic political cultures have higher recycling rates than individualistic political cultures, but that individualistic political cultures have higher recycling rates than traditionalistic political cultures. This hypothesis draws on descriptions of Elazar’s three political cultures (1969). In moralistic political cultures where the commonwealth is the basis for government and the public good is promoted, citizens may be more likely to view recycling as part of their civic duty and responsibility, and more likely to think of recycling as a sustainability initiative. They may seek to enhance recycling opportunities. Government may also be more willing to support investment in quality recycling programs as an activity that promotes the general welfare, and pursue more innovative programming to increase recycling rates.

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In individualistic political cultures where government is used for utilitarian purposes and politics is largely restricted to keeping the marketplace functioning, citizens may feel less inclined to push for improved recycling systems and government may decline to invest in new systems unless there is a clear economic imperative. In individualistic political cultures, framing recycling as a means to save the environment or reduce waste would not likely succeed.

Citizens may be more skeptical about recycling programs and expect corruption, since cynicism about government is characteristic of individualistic political cultures. Traditionalistic political cultures should have the lowest recycling rates, since this culture works to preserve the status quo. Innovation in recycling programs to increase recycling rates would violate the limited role of government, designed to maintain the existing social order. The public may be indifferent to recycling, leading to a perpetuation of traditional systems.

Data and Analytical Methods

This study uses published data on state waste management practices, Elazar’s typology, Sharkansky’s linear scale, and several control variables to investigate differential state recycling rates. Recycling data published by BioCycle, which has conducted a nationwide “State of Garbage in America” survey on a biennial basis since 1989, is used for this study (Van Haaren, Themelis, and Goldstein 2010). BioCycle reports high quality and accurate data on recycling rates by collecting data on tonnage from the solid waste departments of all fifty states and then validating the results using their past reports, EPA waste characterization studies, and a survey of Materials Recovery Facilities (MRF). This allows BioCycle to pinpoint values that have been over-reported.

If a state’s reported tonnage of recycling is greater than the EPA’s average estimate, Biocycle recalculates the value for a material to 100% of the generated material. Biocycle uses the definition of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) used by the EPA, which includes residential and commercial waste consisting of items such as paper, plastic packaging, bottles and cans, tires, yard trimmings, batteries, furniture, and appliances. Examples of items that are not characterized as MSW include industrial and agricultural wastes, construction and demolition debris, automobile scrap, and sludge from wastewater treatment plants. The BioCycle survey subtracts estimates or measured tonnages of non-MSW tonnages. Their definition of the ‘recycling’ category includes both materials recycling (paper, metals, glass, and plastics) and organics recycling through composting (including mulch production).

BioCycle data on recycling rates measures the MSW stream on a state-by-state basis, whereas the EPA uses nationwide averages. This study calculates the state recycling rate as the total MSW recycled divided by the total MSW generated (MSW recycled plus remaining MSW waste). Composting is included in the recycling category, as it represents another form of recycling. The analysis is conducted at the state level rather than a municipal or county level, in accord with previous research on political culture at the state level of analysis. Recycling data below the state level is not always available and rarely verified by a third party such as Biocycle, and may be calculated using inconsistent methods.

Variations of the methodology used in other recent studies employing Elazar’s typology, including Mead (2004), Fisher (2011), Shock (2008), and Fowler and Breen (2013) are used in this study for testing the impact of political culture on state recycling rates.

Impact of Political Culture on State Recycling Rates States were coded according to Sharkansky’s scale, running from one for moralistic political culture to nine for traditionalistic political culture, with individualistic in the middle to empirically test my hypothesis that moralistic political cultures will have higher recycling rates than individualistic political cultures, but that individualistic political cultures will have higher recycling rates than traditionalistic political cultures. To further confirm the role of political culture in explaining differences in state recycling rates, dummy variables were used based solely on Elazar’s typology. This involved recoding each political culture as one, with the other two political cultures coded as zeroes.

Next, the following control variables were added: per capita real GDP, educational levels, average landfill tipping fees, population density, and presence or absence of a state container law. I used US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis data4 on per capita real GDP by state ($).

Per capita real GDP is calculated by dividing the real GDP, inflation-adjusted measure based on national prices for goods and services produced within states, by state population. I also used US Census Bureau data5 for population density data and percentage of the population 25 years and older with Bachelor’s degree or higher and an advanced degree of a Master’s or higher, BioCycle (Van Haaren, Themelis, and Goldstein 2010) for average landfill fees, and National Conference of State Legislatures information6 on presence of a container law.

I predict that these variables will exhibit clear impacts on recycling. States with higher per capita GDP will have higher recycling rates, given more resources to devote to recycling programs and the need to address higher volumes of waste encouraged by a robust state economy. Higher population densities will

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likely stress landfill capacity, and encourage recycling instead. States with more educated populations will likely have higher recycling rates, as found in Folz and Giles (2002), since a more educated populace might be more conscientious and aware of the benefits of recycling. Higher landfill fees might encourage higher recycling rates, since recycling might represent a costeffective alternative to landfilling. The presence of a container law should increase recycling, because the law provides an economic incentive to recycle. Since the BioCycle data uses 2008 data, the independent variables also reflect 2008 data.

I created a bivariate correlation matrix to determine initial relationships between independent variables and the state recycling rate. One-tailed tests of significance are reported, given expectations of the directions of the relationships. Multivariate regression models were then run with selected independent variables to determine their utility in explaining differences in state recycling rates. A logistic regression was also used to explore the impact of political culture on adoption of a state container law.

Results

Overall results support my hypothesis, but express a weaker role for political culture in explaining differences in state recycling rates compared to control variables. Initial results from the bivariate correlation matrix indicate significant relationships between the independent variables and state recycling rate, as well expected directions of the correlations (Table 1).7 Political culture, as operationalized by the Sharkansky scale, explains 6.1 percent of the variation in state recycling rates (correlation of 0.247) and exhibits a p-value of 0.042. This fits with the idea that moralistic states (lowest on the scale) exhibit the highest recycling rates while traditionalistic states (highest on the scale)

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exhibit the lowest recycling rates, with individualistic states in the middle.

Landfill tipping fees, state educational attainment levels, per capita GDP, and population density all exhibit expected correlations and significant relationships with recycling rates. Presence of a container law, however, exhibits the highest correlation (0.496) with the recycling rate variable, meaning that 24.6 percent of the variation in state recycling rates can be explained by presence or absence of a state container law. The relationship had a p-value of 0.001.

The container law also exhibits a strong correlation with the Sharkansky scale (- 0.402), with a p-value of 0.001, indicating that as states rate higher on the Sharkansky scale (become more traditionalistic), they are less likely to have adopted a container law.

Table 2 presents a multivariate regression model using the significant variables: the Sharkansky scale, the main variable of interest, as well as percent of the population with an advanced degree, presence of a container law, and population density. Per capita GDP was excluded because of its lower correlation with state recycling rate in the correlation matrix, and a desire to maintain a parsimonious model. Though the variable for average landfill tipping fee is significant in a bivariate context, it was not included because 14 of the cases were missing and not enough data is available to make educated judgments about the landfill fees of these states. The overall model is significant (p = 0.001) and the adjusted R Square value indicates that the model explained 27% of the variation in state recycling rates. Interestingly, presence of a container law was the only variable that met the test of significance, with a p-value of 0.007. The p-values for advanced degree, the Sharkansky scale, and population density were not significant (p=0.318, p=0.770 and p=0.332 respectively).

When converting Elazar’s typology to dummy variables and using them to replace the Sharkansky scale in the regression model, the dummy variables for moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic political cultures exhibited expected directions in their relationships, with unstandardized coefficients of 3.75, -1.92, and -1.82 respectively. These relationships provide credence for the utility of the Sharkansky scale. However, they failed significance tests under the model, with p-values of 0.233, 0.566, and 0.553 respectively.

As a result of finding a large correlation (- 0.402) between the presence of container law and position on the Sharkansky scale, a logistic regression was next run with the container law as the dependent variable (Table 3) and advanced degree, the Sharkansky scale, population density, and per capita GDP as independent variables. The model had a probability > Chi2 of 0.002 and a pseudo R-squared of 0.2886. The Sharkansky scale was the only significant variable at the p < .05 level (p = 0.026). In further analysis, dummy variables from Elazarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s typology were substituted for the Sharkansky scale in three separate logistic regression models. The moralistic political culture variable was significantly associated with adoption of a container law across these three models, helping affirm the value of the political culture variable in explaining adoption of a container law.

When replacing the Sharkansky scale with moralistic political culture coded as one, and individualistic and traditionalistic political culture coded as zero, the moralistic variable had the highest odds ratio for predicting a shift from not having to having a container law (9.57083) and the only significant p-value (0.037). The model had a probability > Chi2 of 0.0179 and a pseudo R-squared of 0.2384.

Impact of Political Culture on State Recycling Rates Discussion

The results suggest weak but expected relational evidence that political culture impacts state recycling rates. Two key reasons help explain the lack of weight of the political culture variable in my model. The first reason is that while most studies use the state level as their unit of analysis, a smaller unit of analysis, such as county or even municipal level, might have been more appropriate. This is because many waste management decisions are still made on a local level. Waste management decisions regarding the path of waste generation, waste handling at the source, collection, transport, processing and transformation, and disposal are often described as being the province of cities. Factors influencing decisions to modernize waste management, whether they are public health, environmental protection, resource recovery, concerns about climate change, or aesthetics of modernity may differ depending on the city (Vergara and Tchobanoglous 2013). While many states mandate that cities recycle (Louis and Shih 2007), cities ultimately make many decisions that may impact recycling rates ranging from contracting decisions to educational efforts to implementation of Pay-as-You-Throw programs.

Secondly, an updated framework of political culture may prove helpful for reflecting variation in political culture within states as well as the demographic and cultural changes of the last few decades since Elazar created his typology. Lieske’s (2010) study shows large variation in political culture within many states containing multiple different types of political culture. In addition, several of Lieske’s political cultures reflect demographics that were either not included in Elazar’s typology, such as Lieske’s ‘Native’ political culture, or that were not present at the same levels, such as ‘Latino.’

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While a project using the county or municipal level of analysis and a more recent framework of political culture might prove fruitful for advancing understanding of differential recycling rates, a serious challenge would first have to be overcome. Data at the county level or municipal is not readily available or checked by a third party, which may reduce the reliability of the data. Currently, there is great need for assembling and analyzing data on generation and disposition of waste at the county and municipal level.

Kaufman and Themelis argue that even though a plethora of MSW data exists in the United States, much of the data fails transparency tests and can be very challenging to locate (2009). They also show that the two main methods used for quantifying national flows of MSW, the BioCycle “State of Garbage in America” and the US Environmental Protection Agency MSW “Facts and Figures” reports, demonstrate significant differences in results. In their study of California waste management, sponsored by EPA Region 9, Kaufman and Themelis (2009) exhibited how the “State of Garbage in America” survey might be accompanied by greater analysis of state data to allow for more reliable, transparent, tonnage-based data availability. Future research might focus on how to obtain more reliable data on county and municipal recycling rates to more accurately explore differential recycling rates across the United States.

While more research might help clarify the extent to which political culture impacts recycling rates, a serious implication of the trends seen with this study is that recycling campaigns must be framed with careful attention to political culture in order to maximize results. In moralistic states, appealing to citizens’ conceptions of government as a positive force in their communities may maximize pressure for improved recycling systems. Framing recycling in

40 terms of ethics, such as environmental stewardship, may prove particularly effective, given the propensity for citizens to view government as a force for the good. Recycling education campaigns focused on responsibility to the community may prove to work best, given that individuals tend to value active citizenship roles.

In states with individualistic political cultures, on the other hand, recycling might be better framed as an activity that promotes economic success by salvaging materials from the waste stream and reducing the need for raw materials. Efforts to improve recycling might be best framed in terms of increasing efficiency and reducing costs rather than on ethical grounds, such as protecting the environment.

Additionally, allowing the private sector to innovate in terms of alternative collection and recycling systems may be more popular than government-sponsored programs. New paradigms of waste management, such as Extender Producer Responsibility (EPR), must be carefully framed and designed so as to demonstrate government intervention only to the extent that it promotes the private sector. EPR is a system in which manufacturers are responsible for taking back consumer products after they have been used in order to promote environmentally friendly design and capacity for reuse and recycling. Adopted in the European Union, it has yet to be seriously considered in the United States (Sachs 2006). The challenges faced in the United States to adopt new recycling measures may be a result of political culture.

Traditionalistic cultures may prove the most challenging arenas for improving recycling rates. Not only do these states often have the lowest recycling rates, but government is also seen as limited to maintaining the existing social order. Because of this viewpoint, working to promote the interests of

long-term family recycling businesses might prove particularly helpful. Emphasizing how recycling helps family businesses and appealing to their familyoriented, hard-working, and patriotic traits may prove a better strategy than suggesting alternative models of recycling. Programs to introduce recycling should focus on cost and energy savings and economic opportunities, benefits that enhance the status quo but do not fundamentally change it. While framing recycling as an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save land from landfill development might be effective in a moralistic political culture, such arguments may prove less helpful in traditionalistic political cultures, where the primary role of government is to maintain the status quo.

In addition to my findings concerning political culture and its relation to recycling rates, I also obtained significant results regarding the importance of a state beverage container law in influencing recycling rates, with a p-value of 0.007 in my model.

These results provide evidence that major state policies may impact recycling rates. Ten states so far have implemented state beverage container laws, more commonly known as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;bottle bills,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; including California (1987), Connecticut (1980), Hawaii (2005), Iowa (1978), Maine (1978), Massachusetts (1983), Michigan (1978), New York (1983), Oregon (1972), and Vermont (1973). States enacted these policies in order to encourage recycling.

Citizens who purchase aluminum, glass, or plastic bottles may redeem their empty bottles for monetary refunds, typically at a rate of five to ten cents each. Unredeemed deposits are either considered property of the state or the retailer retains a proportion.8 Deposit-refund systems that have been used for beverage containers, lead-acid batteries, motor oil, tires, hazardous materials, electronics, and

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics other materials, encourage recycling by combining a tax on consumption of a product with a rebate if the product or its packaging is redeemed for recycling.

Adding an up-front fee to product consumption has been shown to be highly effective in increasing recycling rates, and superior to other disposal policies such as virgin materials taxes, recycled content standards, and recycling subsidies (Walls 2013).

Providing evidence for how political culture might impact recycling rates might prove to be a more difficult task than explaining state adoption of policies designed to improve recycling rates. The Sharkansky scale had a higher correlation with state adoption of a container law (-0.402) compared to state recycling rate (-0.247). Additionally, the logistic regression model had a significant p-value of 0.026 for the Sharkansky variable. The results of this test fit well with what might be expected of states and correspond well with the results of Fowler and Breenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2013 study on state adoption of renewable portfolio standards.

Moralistic states would be most expected to adopt a bottle bill because of the willingness of government to take bold action for the good of society.

Individualistic states would be expected to be less enthusiastic about such policies because they represent government intervention in the private business sphere and require a professionalized bureaucracy.

However, a bottle bill might be viewed as beneficial for businesses, since it can increase the amount of material available for production of goods and decrease costs.

This suggests the need to properly frame recycling.

Traditionalistic states, on the other hand, would be expected to show low preference for bottle bill adoption because it represents a significant departure from the status quo. A possible reason for the success of the Sharkansky scale in explaining adoption of a bottle bill is that the dates of adoption more closely

41

align with Elazarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original typology. All of the policies were adopted in the 1970s or early 1980s except for Hawaii, which implemented a policy in 2005. The BioCycle recycling data, on the other hand, is highly recent and may reflect demographic and cultural attributes that were not present when Elazar first developed his typology.

Conclusions

Industrialized countries like the United States tend to pride themselves on highly modernized, centralized, high-tech systems of waste management.

Improved waste management systems may produce multi-faceted benefits including improved public health, a cleaner environment, a more robust economy, and reduced greenhouse gases. However, the heterogeneity of recycling rates within the United States suggests that such desires cannot be considered universal. Understanding why California might have a higher recycling rate than Texas, for example, requires a deeper analysis.

My study of political culture and recycling rates reflects the need to identify the driving factor behind the differences across states. While many mechanisms have been proposed to explain differential recycling rates, whether norms of pro-environmental behavior or municipal experience with Pay-as-You Throw, few if any studies have examined spatial relationships between recycling rates and explanatory variables. My test of the utility of Elazarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s political culture typology provides a first attempt to identify why differences might exist in geographic dimensions across the United States. While the results were less clear-cut than initially hoped, they provide evidence that using a large, encompassing variable such as political culture is beneficial for analyzing spatial differences in recycling rates.

42

Beattie

While analyzing policies such as unit pricing of garbage may prove useful for determining whether they can increase recycling rates, they do not provide information about why such policies might be adopted in the first place. In the same vein, analyzing the effectiveness of community norms in increasing recycling rates, for example, fails to provide useful data on how different geographical units may differ for such a variable. My analysis of the political culture variable is a first step towards providing a useful tool for understanding underlying differences across states, which in turn provides information that may inform education and policies, as well as recycling frames.

Endnotes 1 US Environmental Protection Agency, “Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2011,” accessed October 10, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/m8q8yro.

2 US Environmental Protection Agency, “Municipal Solid Waste.”

3 U.S. Census Bureau, “2010 Census Shows America’s Diversity,” March 24, 2011, accessed October 10, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/3ccgj5v.

4 US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, “2008 Per Capita Real GDP by State,” accessed April 4, 2014, www.bea.gov.

5 U.S. Census Bureau, “2010 Census.”

6 National Conference of State Legislatures, “State Beverage Container Deposit Laws,” accessed October 10, 2012, http://tinyurl.com/oy676hl.

7 Significance levels are reported to underscore the strength of the relationships, given that this is a population of state programs, not a sample.

8 National Conference of State Legislatures, “State Beverage.”

References Callan, Scott J., and Janet M. Thomas. 2006. “Analyzing Demand for Disposal and Recycling Services: A Systems Approach.” Eastern Economic Journal 32 (2): 221-240.

Carlson, Ann E. 2001. “Recycling Norms.” California

Law Review 89 (5): 1231-1300.

Elazar, Daniel J. 1966. American Federalism: A View from the States. New York: Crowell. ___. 1972. American Federalism: A View from the States. New York: Crowell. ___. 1984. American Federalism: A View from the States. New York: Harper and Row. Fisher, Patrick. 2010. “State Political Culture and Support for Obama in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primaries.” The Social Science Journal 47 (3): 699-709.

Fowler, Luke, and Joseph Breen. 2013. “The Impact of Political Factors on States’ Adoption of Renewable Portfolio Standards.” The Electricity Journal 26 (2): 79-94.

Folz, David H., and Joseph M. Hazlett. 1991. “Public Participation and Recycling Performance: Explaining Program Success.” Public Administration Review 51 (6): 627-650.

Folz, David H., and Jacqueline N. Giles. 2002.

“Municipal Experience with ‘Pay-as-YouThrow’ Policies: Findings from a National Survey.” State and Local Government Review 34 (2): 105-115.

Kaufman, Scott M., and Nickolas J. Themelis. 2009.

“Using a Direct Method to Characterize and Measure Flows of Municipal Solid Waste in the United States.” Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association 59 (12): 1386-1390.

Impact of Political Culture on State Recycling Rates Kinnaman, Thomas C. 2000. “Explaining the Growth in Municipal Recycling Programs: The Role of Market and Nonmarket Factors.” Public Works Management & Policy 5 (1): 37-51.

Lieske, Joel. 1993. “Regional Subcultures of the United States.” The Journal of Politics 55 (4): 888-913. ___. 2010. “The Changing Regional Subcultures of the American States and the Utility of a New Cultural Measure.” Political Research Quarterly 63 (3): 538-552.

Louis, Garrick, and Jhih-Shyang Shih. 2007. “A Flexible Inventory Model for Municipal Solid Waste Recycling.” Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 41 (1): 61-89.

McBeth, Mark K., Donna L. Lybecker, and Kacee A. Garner. 2010. “The Story of Good Citizenship: Framing Public Policy in the Context of DutyBased Versus Engaged Citizenship.” Politics & Policy 38 (1): 1-23.

Mead, Lawrence M. 2004. “State Political Culture and Welfare Reform.” The Policy Studies Journal 32 (2): 271-296.

Pellow, David N., Allan Schnaiberg, and Adam S. Weinberg. 2000. “Putting the Ecological Modernisation Thesis to the Test: The Promises and Performances of Urban Recycling.”

Environmental Politics 9 (1): 109-137.

Peretz, Jean H., Bruce E. Tonn, and David H. Folz.

2005. “Explaining the Performance of Mature Municipal Solid Waste Recycling Programs.”

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 48 (5): 627-650.

Sachs, Noah. 2006. “Planning the Funeral at the Birth: Extended Producer Responsibility in the European Union and the United States.”

Harvard Environmental Law Review 30: 51-98.

Sharkansky, Ira. 1969. “The Utility of Elazar’s Political Culture: A Research Note.” Polity 2 (1): 66-83.

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Shock, David R. 2008. “Securing a Line on the Ballot: Measuring and Explaining the Restrictiveness of Ballot Access Laws for Non-Major Party Candidates in the United States.” The Social Science Journal 45 (1): 48-60.

Sidique, Shaufique F., Satish V. Joshi, and Frank Lupi. 2010. “Factors Influencing the Rate of Recycling: An Analysis of Minnesota Counties.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling 54 (4): 242-249.

Van Haaren, Rob, Nickolas Themelis, and Nora Goldstein. 2010. “The State of Garbage in America.” BioCycle (October): 16-23.

Vergara, Sintana E., and George Tchobanoglous. 2012.

“Municipal Solid Waste and the Environment: A Global Perspective.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 37 (November): 277-309.

Viscusi, Kip W., Joel Huber, and Jason Bell. 2010.

“Promoting Recycling: Private Values, Social Norms, and Economic Incentives.” American Economic Review 101 (3): 65-70.

Walls, Margaret. 2013. “Deposit-Refund Systems in Practice and Theory.” In Encyclopedia of Energy, Natural Resource, and Environmental Economics, ed. Jason F. Shogren. Waltham, MA: Elsevier, 133-137. (appendix on next page)

Political Culture (Elazar)

Trad.

Ind. Trad.

Trad.

Mor. Mor. Ind. Ind. Trad.

Trad.

Ind. Mor. Ind. Ind. Mor. Mor. Trad.

Trad.

Mor. Ind. Ind. Mor. Mor. Trad.

Ind.

State

AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DE FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO

8.57 5 5.66 9 3.55 1.8 3 7 7.8 8.8 5 2.5 4.72 6.33 2 3.66 7.4 8 2.33 7 3.66 2 1 9 7.66

Sharkansky Scale

5287330 643253 6784535 4696134 61210578 7475820 3489034 1032201 23335009 11529102 3718002 1668578 16650811 9455000 3894330 3473325 6335476 5835476 1186854 6551880 8350000 14011339 10326122 2698238 4851821

Estimated MSW (tons/ yr.)

472,000 28,646 983,327 985117 32366636 650860 910619 291058 2403281 722266 830340 150172 1500811 855801 1171938 875741 1444293 594966 362101 2242457 2980000 844328 2607584 145000 951860

Total Recycled + Composted (tons/yr.)

8.93 4.45 14.49 20.98 52.88 8.71 26.10 28.20 10.30 6.26 22.33 9.00 9.01 9.05 30.09 25.21 22.80 10.20 30.51 34.23 35.69 6.03 25.25 5.37 19.62

Recycling Rate (%)

25 35 30.74 63 58.9 37 34.92 29.57 40.71 30 29.21 46 60 52 72 50 25 -

Average Landfill Tip Fee ($/ton)

33036 59697 38395 31872 47976 47239 57106 60747 37212 39334 45112 33481 45557 37653 40998 40641 32794 41493 34251 45511 51911 34745 46148 29557 37505

Per Capita Real GDP ($)

Appendix 1. Recycling Data

94.4 1.2 56.3 56 239.1 48.5 738.1 460.8 350.6 168.4 211.8 19 231.1 181 54.5 34.9 109.9 104.9 43.1 594.8 839.4 174.8 66.6 63.2 87.1

Population Density (inhabitants per square mile)

No No No No Yes No Yes No No No Yes No No No Yes No No No Yes No Yes Yes No No No

Container Law (Yes/ No)

22.00 27.30 25.10 18.80 29.60 35.60 35.60 27.50 25.80 27.50 29.10 24.00 29.90 22.90 24.30 29.60 19.70 20.30 25.40 35.20 38.10 24.70 31.50 19.40 25.00

Bachelor’s Degree or Higher (% pop. age 25 or over)

7.70 9.70 9.20 6.30 10.80 12.70 15.20 10.80 9.00 9.70 9.90 7.40 11.20 8.10 7.30 10.10 7.90 6.50 8.90 15.40 16.40 9.40 10.00 6.80 9.10

Master’s Degree or Higher (% pop. age 25 or over)

44

MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY

Mor. Ind. Ind. Mor. Ind. Trad.

Ind. Trad.

Mor. Ind. Trad.

Mor. Ind. Ind. Trad.

Mor. Trad.

Trad.

Mor. Mor. Trad.

Mor. Trad.

Mor. Ind.

3 3.66 5 2.33 4 7 3.62 8.5 2 5.16 8.25 2 4.28 3 8.75 3 8.5 7.11 2 2.33 7.86 1.66 7.33 2 4

1438084 2565379 3614681 1244365 13169025 2031891 16925888 8630060 736872 13252219 4394393 4632513 17043945 1014846 4448935 699039 5414776 29164982 2580879 584467 14858903 7420559 2110381 5150553 839060

120760 322500 314849 113177 3926261 276144 3688312 1257637 49478 2914501 170000 1761727 5425806 150263 1081513 133891 301112 6994275 212787 156611 3096024 2102022 337661 1372152 109413

8.40 12.57 8.71 9.10 29.81 13.59 21.79 14.57 6.71 21.99 3.87 38.03 31.83 14.81 24.31 19.15 5.56 23.98 8.24 26.80 20.84 28.33 16.00 26.64 13.04

42 77 68 28 44.69 35 34 32 18.5 35 52 35 39.5 34 27.8 96 52.65 45.18 42.5 55

32718 43255 45155 41383 50950 34340 51396 40590 43530 37350 36633 45156 39503 41160 32273 42925 36942 44310 39001 36485 46779 46963 28034 38788 57447

6.8 23.8 24.6 147 1195.5 17 411.2 196.1 9.7 282.3 54.7 39.9 283.9 1018.1 153.9 10.7 153.9 96.3 33.6 67.9 202.6 101.2 77.1 105 5.8

No No No Yes No No Yes No No No No Yes No No No No No No No Yes No No No No No

27.10 27.10 21.90 33.30 34.40 24.70 31.90 26.10 26.90 24.10 22.20 28.10 26.30 30.00 23.70 25.10 22.90 25.30 29.10 32.10 33.70 30.70 17.10 25.70 23.60

8.40 8.60 7.00 12.00 12.80 10.70 13.80 8.60 6.60 8.70 7.20 10.10 10.00 11.30 8.50 7.30 8.00 8.30 9.40 12.20 13.80 10.90 6.70 8.60 7.90

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics 45

46

The United States’ Role in the Construction of International Small Arms Control Isabel Bryan Georgia College & State University Small arms are inexpensive, relatively small, easily concealed, and easy to operate. It is for these seemingly innocuous reasons that the illicit trade of small arms across borders is problematic – these weapons are easy for individuals or groups to obtain, hide, and use without expending significant resources. When small arms fall into the hands of criminals, insurgents, gang members, or terrorists, the results are deadly. This paper argues that the United States’ carefully constructed pro-gun network and existing domestic gun control policies compete with and ultimately dominate a transnational pro-control network to prevent the emergence of an international norm regulating small arms. The paper begins by briefly reviewing seminal constructivist and norm-building literature and explaining why constructivism is an appropriate theoretical lens for examining small arms control. Using the established constructivist framework, the paper then addresses the largely unsuccessful efforts of the transnational pro-control network to limit small arms proliferation and explains how the United States plays a role in the obstruction of this norm-building process. The paper concludes by speculating how the United States’ identity would have to change in order to make the emergence of an international norm regulating small arms possible.

Introduction In the realm of international conflict and security, the illegal use and proliferation of small arms across borders poses a significant threat.1 Since the end of the Cold War, the international community has witnessed a growing number of intrastate, civil, and ethnic conflicts perpetrated with small arms.

These weapons are inexpensive, relatively small, easily concealed, and easy to operate, making them common weapons of choice for terrorists, gangs, and criminals.

Ever-improving technology continuously increases the lethality of guns; most present-day conflict fatalities result from small arms, and civilians constitute the majority of these casualties (UNODA 2013).

The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) notes that the illegal circulation of small arms is an especially destabilizing force in

developing states. The legal and illegal flow of weapons into these unstable regions exacerbates existing conflict, makes violence more likely to erupt, and increases the number of fatalities when such violence occurs. Armed conflict is the most common reason for food insecurity in developing states, and small arms are often used to facilitate other human rights violations such as rape, kidnapping, and torture.

UNODA notes that small arms have been “particularly devastating in Africa”; these weapons have been used in deadly conflicts in Sudan, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia, among others (2013). UNODA clarifies that while a “build-up of small arms alone may not create the conflicts in which they are used… their excessive accumulation and wide availability aggravates the tension” (UNODA 2013).

US Role in Construction of International Small Arms Control Small arms circulation is not confined to developing regions, however. There are several key channels of supply, both legal and illegal, in the international small arms trade: government-to government transfers, commercial sales, clandestine operations, and black-market sales (Reed, Boutwell, and Klare 1995). Since small arms have some legitimate use for civilian, state, and law enforcement actors, it is difficult to monitor the flow of firearms through these channels, as they may travel through many regions by both legal and illegal means. Though most small arms “begin their life cycle as legally produced, sold, and purchased weapons,” these weapons may be transferred and used for criminal purposes by an individual, a corrupt and hostile government, or a rebel group (Grillot 2011, 532).

Though the starting point of these channels of supply varies somewhat, the life cycle of these weapons most often begins in major arms-exporting states with significant economic and political power in the international sphere. Though these states claim to monitor their exports and supply small arms for legal purposes only, the limits of legality are ambiguous at best. International attempts to regulate small arms proliferation have been largely unsuccessful. Arms exporters are thus often able to justify government trades to “questionable actors throughout the world” (Grillot 2011, 532). During recent negotiations, proponents of an international small arms control treaty noted that Russia has supplied small arms to Syria, where a civil war has cost more than 110,000 lives since March 2011, despite knowledge that the weapons would be used to murder civilians. Despite criticism, Russia claims these trades are legal, as there has been no arms embargo.2 Despite these blatant problems, distribution of power among the world’s primary arms suppliers

47

makes arms regulations difficult to monitor and enforce. The United States is the world’s largest arms supplier, followed by Russia, Germany, France, China and the United Kingdom.3 All these states are major global powers with interest in arms production for both economic profitability and geopolitical strategy. The political and economic power of these major exporters makes international regulation and accountability difficult. There is no supervisory actor, and states are reluctant to regulate themselves in any capacity that could diminish their own profit or strategic influence (Bob 2012, 116).4 Despite the collective power and potential of these major states to organize and cooperate, the international community has not yet developed a set of agreed-upon procedures or norms to regulate the flow of small arms. Though many gun control advocates see it as an unprecedented step toward formal regulation, the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty is likely to be rendered ineffective.

While lack of international regulatory standards can be explained as a failure of great powers to organize, collective willingness to overlook the costs of the small arms trade, or a consequence of competing norms,5 this paper attributes lack of international regulation to a single dynamic: the clashing interests of the US pro-gun network and the transnational pro-control network that seeks to impose controls on small arms.6 Other contributing factors stem from this underlying tension, but none of these factors can be mitigated or eliminated without first addressing the domestic norms of the US and the pro-gun network that resists international small arms control.

This paper uses constructivist theory to address the largely unsuccessful efforts of the procontrol network to limit international small arms proliferation. It argues that the United States’ identity

48 nuances of this dynamic. This paper builds upon the definition of a norm as a single standard of appropriate behavior, which is mutually understood as customary by actors with a given identity (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 891). Although this definition has generally been agreed upon by constructivists, it is necessary to elaborate further (Grillot 2011, 533; Katzenstein 1996, 5).

It is important to distinguish norms as Constructivism as a Theoretical Tool single standards of behavior, rather than collective This paper uses constructivist theory to address behaviors that are interdependent and structured the role of the United States in international small arms together. For example, Finnemore and Sikkink note that “sovereignty” is a collection of norms structured control. The primary reason for using constructivism together to form an institution rather than a single is recognition of the interconnectedness of state standard of behavior (1998). This definition of a norm and systemic levels, and the circular process of allows single behaviors to be isolated and examined. norm-reinforcement that both levels perpetuate.

In addition, the definition emphasizes the prescriptive Constructivism allows for separate examination of state and systemic behaviors, but recognizes that social quality of norms by specifying that a norm constitutes “appropriate” behavior (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). and political constructs are not discrete and do not exist on their own. Though constructivism and realism Including the word ‘appropriate’ in the definition implies evaluation by and consensus of a society. This are often seen as opposing theories, Jennifer Sterlingspecification distinguishes norms from other standards Folker notes that constructivism needs elements of of behavior. realism to correct for some of its “worst excesses”; At an individual level, norms dictate how when discussing identity changes at the systemic we behave and how we expect others to behave level, combining realist and constructivist elements in response. Norms serve a similar function in can provide an “explanation of the process of global international relations; they are helpful because institutional transformation itself ” (2002, 74). Thus, it is not incongruous for constructivists to discuss realist they allow us to predict how states will behave in different scenarios. The presence of a norm indicates concepts such as polarity, as long as such discussions a precedent that is likely to be followed; the absence are rooted in the larger context of identity formation of a norm makes state behavior unpredictable. and reinforcement.

Predicting interstate behavior is simplified when states In order to analyze international small share common norms. Norms exist within domestic, arms control, constructivism requires a thorough regional or international frameworks and are “deeply examination of state and systemic norms addressing entwined” with one another (Finnemore and Sikkink small arms and the relationship between these norms.

1998, 893). Though these frameworks overlap, norms Understanding the language used by constructivist theorists is essential for addressing and articulating the are “continuous, rather than dichotomous, entities” as world leader, its gun culture, and its powerful pro-gun network founded on domestic gun control policies are all factors preventing the emergence of an international norm regulating small arms. The paper then describes how concerted norm building could alter the United States’ domestic identity and make international regulatory measures feasible and universally desirable.

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics and do not necessarily lead to one another (Legro 1997, 33). For example, the international community as a whole may not internalize a norm that has been internalized by a single state.

Norm emergence and internalization are parts of what is called the “life cycle of norms” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 892). There are three stages within this life cycle: norm emergence, “norm cascade” and norm internalization (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 892). Norm emergence is initiated by “norm entrepreneurs” who actively build and advocate a norm to a domestic, regional, or international system (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 892-901).

Norm entrepreneurs intentionally use “language that names, interprets, and dramatizes” what they wish to emphasize (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 897).

Theorists refer to this strategic thought guiding as ‘framing’.

Norm entrepreneurs work towards a tipping point when emergent norms become accepted by a “critical mass” of states or people. If a norm has achieved critical mass, a norm cascade or “contagion” follows. This norm cascade is “an active process of… socialization intended to induce norm breakers to become norm followers” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 904). The norm life cycle ends when a norm has become so accepted that compliance with the norm is automatic and generally goes unquestioned (Adler 1997; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998).

While domestic, regional or international norms can vary, domestic and international norms are linked and interdependent (Morse 1976, 14). “Linkage” between domestic and systemic norms indicates a symbiotic relationship in which “recurrent behavior originates in one system and is reacted to in another” (Rosenau 1969, 45). Thus, international norms are defined through recurrent practice of states and have

49

been increasingly institutionalized in international law since 1948 in the wake of World War II. Even when they are not codified, however, international norms are mutually understood expectations with a “regulatory effect” on actors (Giddens 1983, 8; Katzenstein, Keohane and Krasner 1998, 679-680). Whether a norm is codified or customary, the norm is the accepted standard of state behavior and can be used to predict future behavior.

The longer the norm has been followed, the more likely it will continue to be followed (Giddens 1983, 8).

Eventually, a norm becomes so internalized that actors do not notice when the norm is reinforced – they only notice when the norm is violated. For example, Finnemore and Sikkink note that women’s suffrage is an entrenched norm that goes unquestioned (1998, 895). A woman in a voting booth does not draw attention, but a woman being handcuffed after voting would make headlines.

Just as women’s suffrage is a norm that governs the behavior of individuals, international norms govern the behavior of states (Wendt 1992; Adler 1997). Entrenched norms in international politics generally serve the interests of existing regimes while hindering the emergence of new ones that do not fit into the established normative framework (Garcia 2004, 21; Grillot 2011, 534). New norms “emerge in a highly competitive normative space where they must compete with other norms and perceptions of interest” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 897). Actors who benefit from existing norms are not inclined to advocate change, and actors who want to change existing norms often have to work within the existing normative structure in order to promote their vision.

Actors collectively produce their reality by adhering to and abiding by norms (Ba and Hoffman 2003). Nicholas Onuf describes this as a “two-way

50

Bryan

process” in which actors shape society and society shapes actors (1998, 59). Whether states benefit from existing norms or not, all actors are limited by the norms that they themselves create and reinforce.

Anthony Giddens addressed this paradox in his “theory of structuration” (1984, 107); Alexander Wendt later termed it the “agent-structure problem” (1987, 337).

Analyzing the two-way process requires close examination of basic, entrenched attributes that contribute to identity construction. Qualities of an actor or society that seem obvious, given, and inconsequential to other theorists are important to constructivists. The constructivist dismantles the fundamental features of societies or actors in order to examine their roots. Among other factors, constructivists reflect upon the “meaning of collective action, the status of norms, the relative priority accorded structures and agents, causation, and the processes of socialization” (Dunne 2009, 742). The agent-structure problem is termed a ‘problem’ because, by definition, constructivists are never able to identify a single cause of behavior – each action or attribute leads to the construction of another.

As a theoretical approach, constructivism views the world in ideational terms with the agentstructure problem as its foundation. In contrast with realist theory, constructivism places more importance on ideas, identities and social constructs than material elements of hard power (Jackson and Sørensen 2010, 163-164). Constructivism views identity construction as central to understanding interstate relations, as states are constantly signaling, interpreting and responding to each other based on understandings of themselves and one another (Wendt 1992, 405).

The underlying assumption is that these identities are fluid, not fixed, and that state identities

and systemic structures change together. Indeed, the belief in the ability of actors to dismantle existing norms and change customary behavior in an anarchical system is among the central tenets of constructivist theory (Wendt 1992, 395). Where realist and liberal theories struggle to explain radical change, constructivism is able to explain rapid, fundamental change by citing changes in actors’ identities and historical and structural forces (Adler 1991, 43-88).

Constructivists believe that dissecting intersubjective meanings of state identity is the first step toward understanding how existing norms can dissolve and new ones can emerge (Adler 1997, 327).

Though constructivism is sometimes criticized for focusing on the development of “morally-desirable” norms, Finnemore and Sikkink note that norms inherently involve a level of “oughtness” no matter how a theoretical approach rationalizes or explains them (1998, 891). Constructivists recognize the subjectivity of norms and seek to understand why and how ‘morally desirable’ goals change and are pursued.

Rather than treating norms as post hoc justifications for pursuing self-interested goals, constructivist scholars seek to understand the process of norm building and how actors’ identities and sense of “oughtness” inform this process (Garcia 2004, 20).

The idea that rapid, fundamental change is possible through norm-building and norm dissolution makes constructivism a particularly useful approach for studying the United States’ role in international small arms control. Understanding this role requires examination on two levels: the state level and the systemic level. Though constructivism generally focuses on systemic-level interactions, it is an approach that can be altered to focus on the state level as well.

Thus, constructivism is able to explain how norms, both domestic and international, affect domestic

US Role in Construction of International Small Arms Control identity and how domestic identity informs interaction between states (Jackson and Sørensen 2010, 168-169).

For these reasons, constructivism is a particularly suitable approach for studying small arms control. Deconstructing international norms requires thorough examination of great-power norms, which necessarily influence the systemic level.

International norms often mirror great-power norms and reflect the interests of global hegemons. Invoking constructivism, Sterling-Folker notes that “patterns to the historical process of social construction” include the occurrence of replication and that “preferred sources of institutional innovation are the social practices of other groups that have been ‘tested’” (2002, 87). In essence, if an observing state perceives another state’s norms as successful, the observing state may begin consciously pursuing similar norms through various processes. Less developed states will often attempt to replicate the norms of states they perceive as internationally successful, such as the US. With regard to small arms control, international regulations are largely absent and underdeveloped. One might expect, then, to see absence of a norm in the contemporary global hegemon – the United States. However, the United States’ gun control norms are far from underdeveloped; on the contrary, they are deeply entrenched. The norm in the United States is a conscious and concerted lack of regulation.

Constructivism is used here to investigate the following questions regarding the United States’ role in small arms control: How do states’ identities make stricter regulations desirable for the transnational pro-control network? How has the United States’ hegemony in a unipolar world affected its own sense of identity and other states’ perceptions of its identity since the end of the Cold War? What factors influence

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and perpetuate the pro-gun network and the United States’ domestic gun culture? Would the United States’ domestic identity have to change in order to support greater regulations of small arms? Constructivism is the best theoretical approach to address these questions because it allows for a more nuanced account of state interests and identities. Rather than defining interest in terms of power, constructivism attempts to explain the factors, both systemic and domestic, which ultimately prevent the propagation of a norm in the international sphere.

History of Small Arms Regulation

Regulating the unchecked proliferation of small arms has long been a goal of various leaders, states, and NGOs. However, the history of attempts to establish a regulatory norm has been fraught and discouraging for pro-control advocates. The differences between pro-gun and pro-control networks are stark: the two networks represent “conflicting world views” (Bob 2012, 145). Despite numerous multilateral efforts to regulate the spread and use of these weapons, the pro-control network still struggles to find an enforceable solution for limiting the proliferation of small arms (Grillot 2011, 529). Attempts to establish a regulatory norm have floundered. Loose regulation has prevailed, even in the face of international provisions that initially seemed successful, as discussed below.

The most recent effort to regulate small arms was approved in 2013, but it is unclear if its efficacy will exceed similar past provisions. In April 2013 the United Nations General Assembly approved the Arms Trade Treaty, a pact designed to regulate and limit the international conventional weapons trade.7 The treaty is considered an unprecedented milestone in the international regulation of small arms. It outlines several aspects of the conventional arms trade

52 that have previously gone unaddressed: small arms transactions will consider the human rights records of buyers, encourage information-sharing and recordkeeping to prevent diversion of weapons and illicit activities, and require states to submit annual import and export records to the UN Secretariat.

The treaty supposedly “reflects growing international sentiment that the multibillion-dollar weapons trade needs to be held to a moral standard.”8 As of April 2014, however, only 31 states have ratified the treaty. The US is not one of these states; although the US signed the treaty in September 2013, ratification in the near future seems unlikely (UNODA 2013). Over 50 US senators have suggested that they would oppose the treaty; a number that easily overrides the 67 votes required for ratification.9 The failure of the US to ratify the treaty would weaken its efficacy considerably. Though activists claim the US and other major arms exporters will “still be affected” by the regulations of other participating states, the treaty will not hold as much power and is unlikely to become an accepted international norm without US ratification; as previously mentioned, this is largely due to the US role as leading gun manufacturer in the world as well as hegemon in a unipolar system.10 Even if the US were to ratify the Arms Trade Treaty in coming months, it is unclear how effective the measure would be in practice. Perhaps the most prominent weakness of the treaty is lack of enforcement. Article 14 of the treaty, titled “Enforcement,” consists of one sentence: “Each State Party shall take appropriate measures to enforce national laws and regulations that implement the provisions of this Treaty” (UNODA 2013). As with many international agreements, absence of an enforcement mechanism makes regulation difficult.

As international hegemon, the US would undoubtedly

be required to enforce and uphold the regulatory mechanisms of the treaty, such as monitoring diversion of conventional arms within individual states (UNODA 2013). The provision regarding enforcement undermines the treaty and allows the US to exclude itself from regulations and enforce the treaty at its discretion. The UN hopes that “even nations reluctant to ratify the treaty will feel public pressure to abide by its provisions”.11 However, as sole superpower, the US is arguably the state least likely to feel and respond to such public pressure. In short, it is improbable that the Arms Trade Treaty will change US behavior with regard to small arms control.

Though the Arms Trade Treaty is the latest and most significant development in a lengthy history, there have been other significant landmarks in international small arms control that ultimately failed to produce a new norm. For instance, the UN Firearms Protocol and the Program of Action—both international initiatives—appeared to be positive steps in the early 2000s, but ultimately failed to establish a regulatory framework or enforcement system (Grillot 2011, 538-539).12 It seems, then, there has not been international ignorance about this issue; the regulatory norm is just not strong enough to establish a consistent framework.

The pro-control network’s attempts at normbuilding have been continuous since the end of the Cold War, beginning with international recognition that small arms proliferation is, in fact, a problem.

Constructivists call this the acknowledgement process, and it is generally considered a preliminary step to norm contagion and internalization. However, the acknowledgement process, even when fully developed, often precedes failed norm upheaval, as seems the case with small arms regulation. The steps leading to the acknowledgement process—the generation of facts,

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics data, and evidence—make a difference in whether a norm contagion is successful (Garcia 2004, 6-10).

As with most issues of international importance, the emergence of small arms control on the international stage can be grouped into two processes: the knowledge generation process and the subsequent acknowledgement process. The acknowledgement process has primarily occurred within the United Nations General Assembly. The UN has taken various actions to address this issue, most recently through the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty.

However, the power of the UN has been undermined by a powerful and effective pro-gun network driven largely by the United States.13 Though US scholars, activists, NGOs, and citizens have also supported the opposing pro-control network and led the knowledge generation and acknowledgement processes, the US as a state has not taken steps to be part of substantive norm shifts involving greater controls.

Part of this refusal occurs because the US has arguably constructed an identity based on exceptionalism and unwillingness to negotiate since the end of the Cold War. Even during the Cold War itself, the United States’ own interests took precedence over issues of broader scope. Prior to the end of the Cold War, the United States’ primary foreign policy focus was nuclear disarmament and containment.

Intense and competitive US-Soviet relations engendered hostility and single-mindedness at the systemic level (Klare 1995). Over more than 20 years, the US has gradually constructed a state identity in which national interests override and dominate the interests of the larger international community. This identity formation has in turn positioned the US as unparalleled, unchallenged hegemon at the systemic level. This identity construction and subsequent realization of unparalleled material power has ensured

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that the United States not feel international pressure as acutely as other states whose identities are constructed on the basis of multilateral cooperation.

Though nuclear weapons were of primary concern at the time, the issue of small arms proliferation did come up briefly in US-Soviet relations. The US and the Soviet Union negotiated a draft agreement during the 1977 and 1978 Conventional Arms Transfer Talks. These talks were primarily motivated by the proliferation of small arms and their role in proxy wars. Small arms in the hands of smaller enemies (albeit far less threatening than nuclear weapons in the hands of the primary competitor) posed a danger to the security of the respective superpowers. In essence, the talks were primarily motivated by concerns for each state’s security rather than the internal stability of less developed states. The talks did not produce a formal treaty, illustrating the issue’s perceived unimportance.

Though the negotiations demonstrate some global awareness of the problematic small arms trade in the 1970s, they also indicate the beginning of an era of US indifference and non-committal action to address this problem (Klare 1987, 1280).

Despite US indifference toward international small arms control, the knowledge generation process began in earnest towards the end of the Cold War. This process was initiated by an “arms trade epistemic community”: a term describing scholars and professional experts who work in the field of small arms control (Garcia 2004, 6-7). “Epistemic communities” were initially identified by Peter Haas as “channels through which new ideas circulate from societies to governments as well as from country to country” (1992, 27). Unlike other groups, epistemic communities have motivation that “originates outside the political sphere; i.e. in their shared professional or

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academic socialization” (Garcia 2004, 13). In short, though they may not have been initially politically motivated, the arms trade epistemic community probably had some concept of laying the groundwork for US action and recognition. In constructivist theory, epistemic communities such as these often play a crucial role as norm entrepreneurs.

US scholar Michael T. Klare, among other gun control advocates, believed small arms proliferation posed a growing threat. In a 1987 article for Third World Quarterly, Klare notes that “while terrorism, insurgency, counter-insurgency, and small-scale conflicts have always been important features of the global military landscape, these elements of what is now called ‘low-intensity conflict’ have become, in the mid-1980s, a major strategic concern” (1987, 1269).

The prevalence of the low-intensity conflict Klare described would increase dramatically after dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and has continued to the present day, with small arms playing an enormously destructive role in intrastate conflict (1987, 1279).

In February 1994, the Committee on International Security Studies of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences sponsored a project to “survey the state of current knowledge on the growing international proliferation of small arms and light weapons, assess the impact of such weapons on ethnic and nationalist conflict around the world, and explore possible avenues for controlling this lethal trade” in the wake of the Cold War (Reed, Boutwell, and Klare 1995). The project culminated in the 1995 publication of Lethal Commerce: The Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, a collection of essays, observations and data. The publication of this collection is, in retrospect, considered a milestone in the small arms knowledge generation process (Garcia 2004, 15).

The success of this knowledge generation

process after 1995 was not readily apparent in the United States. In fact, the impact of the research manifested at the international level first. The 1995 publication of Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s Supplement to an Agenda for Peace acknowledged the work of the epistemic community and put small arms control on the international community’s radar (Grillot 2011, 536). The report noted that 82% of UN peacekeeping operations from 1992 to 1995 were related to intrastate war—a dramatic increase from prior years (UN 1995).

It also stated that small arms are “probably responsible for most of the deaths in current conflicts” and emphasized the importance of “micro-disarmament” within countries (UN 1995). Presumably, BoutrosGhali felt the best strategy for implementing effective small arms control was for states themselves to regulate the import and export of these weapons.

The UN Supplement to an Agenda for Peace served as a demarcation line between the knowledge generation process and the acknowledgement process.

However, following the acknowledgement process, the international community has seen little success in inciting a norm contagion. The small arms regulation norm is far from internalized in the international community, and the future efficacy of the Arms Trade Treaty, which took seven years to negotiate, remains dubious.14 Though Suzette Grillot and other scholars suggest that these difficulties illustrate the failure of a norm to emerge, it is arguable that the international community has merely followed the United States’ lead in regulating small arms. As the international community continues to await US action on this issue, the reason for norm-building failure becomes apparent. By avoiding efforts to regulate small arms at the systemic level, the US is actively protecting its own domestic norm of loose regulation.

US Role in Construction of International Small Arms Control Domestic Gun Control Norms and Challenges Entrenched Constitutional Norms

In the contemporary international community, the United States has a great deal of cultural and political influence. US products, popular culture, and ways of life are recognized around the world, and the extensive Westernization of developing states demonstrates the pervasive power of US and European cultures. The spread of domestic political norms is no different. Despite their complexity and specific domestic relevance, US norms are highly influential at the international level and are often imitated by other states. As a result, the international community must contend with US norms and their proliferating influence when addressing issues of international importance. International small arms control poses a particular problem for the international community, as the basis for the United States’ strong and enduring gun culture is a constitutionally codified norm.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of domestic small arms control policy in the United States. It is the enduring normative structure around which all norm entrepreneurs within the US must maneuver. The loosely defined but deeply entrenched “right to keep and bear arms” frames any and all attempts to impose new domestic gun control norms. The proclamation that this right “shall not be infringed” negates total prohibition of firearms as a constitutional option and suggests that any regulation whatsoever may violate fundamental American rights.15 Thus, present-day attempts to limit small arms ownership and use are often decried by gun rights advocates as unpatriotic ‘attacks’ on the Second Amendment and the Constitution as a whole. The likening of such opposition to treason demonstrates the Second Amendment’s power and role in US

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identity.

The “open textured” phrasing of the Second Amendment makes its central guiding principle unclear and disputable (Seidman 2011, 546). Most of this debate involves “whether this ‘right’ applies only in the context of a communal militia or whether American citizens have an individual right to bear arms that is independent of an organized militia” (Obermeier 2012, 682). ‘Individual rights theorists’ posit that the Second Amendment allows individuals to own firearms and prohibits legislative bodies from imposing restrictive regulations. On the other hand, ‘collective rights theorists’ assert that the need for a “well-regulated Militia,” as described in the Second Amendment, was intended to prevent Congress from infringing upon a state’s right to self-defense.16 It is no wonder, then, that discussions about domestic gun control in the United States have been ineffective and weak. New regulatory policies cannot exist outside of the unstable and divisive normative framework that the United States has internalized as the prerequisite for all action.

Lenient small arms regulation in the United States can also be attributed to another constitutionally codified norm: the Tenth Amendment. Per this norm, gun control measures are primarily delegated to states, giving the federal government little control over the sale and transfer of firearms.17 Contemporary federal regulatory mechanisms such as background checks have developed over time, but these efforts have been negated and rendered ineffective by states that do not participate fully.18 By granting sovereignty to individual states, the United States has internalized the norm of a limited federal government.

This aversion to a strong federal government is a defining characteristic of US politics, and can be traced back to conflict between Federalists and

56 Democratic-Republicans in the revolutionary era. In current US politics, distrust of ‘big government’ poses a significant challenge, even when federal powers serve and protect citizens. The Tenth Amendment was originally established to safeguard state powers and ensure that the federal government would never become too powerful.19 Ultimately, the Tenth Amendment has prevented the federal government from being able to establish uniform regulations; the application of the amendment has not evolved to meet changing domestic concerns. With regard to both the Second and Tenth Amendments, weak gun control laws stem from unwavering adherence to the Constitution—a governing document based on fear of a tyrannical federal government.

capita in the US—higher than any other developed country.22

Despite such high rates of gun-related deaths in the US, deference to the Second Amendment ensures endurance of the gun ownership norm. Varying judicial interpretations of the Second Amendment illustrate American discomfort with interpreting the Constitution to reflect contemporary circumstances.

For nearly 70 years, the Supreme Court’s rulings on small arms control erred on the side of collective rights theory, beginning with the prohibition of sawedoff shotguns in United States v. Miller in 1939.23 In 2008, however, the Court altered this collective rights precedent by a 5-4 vote in District of Columbia v.

Heller. The Court held that the Second Amendment established an individual right for citizens to Norms of Fear and Gun Ownership possess firearms for self-defense, citing Miller as an

While much of the US Constitution was drafted exception.24 In the 2010 McDonald v. Chicago case, the Court confirmed that individuals have the right to based on fear of a tyrannical federal government, keep and bear arms for purposes of self defense, and contemporary US gun culture is based on a different that state regulations may not infringe upon this right type of fear: fear of other citizens. A significant (Obermeier 2012, 696). percentage of Americans exercise the right to own These two cases in particular define a firearms, and most of these gun owners cite personal contemporary era of especially lax gun control, which protection as their primary motivation.20 Gallup is illustrated by a decisive lack of federal response to polls since 1960 have found gun ownership rates a rash of high-profile mass shootings.25 The extent of hover between 34% and 51%, with many households loose regulation’s entrenchment within the US has possessing multiple firearms.21 The United States become apparent in the face of blatant challenges possesses both the highest number of guns and the to the norm. From a constructivist perspective, highest rate of gun ownership in the world. There were roughly 270 million civilian firearms in the US in fairly frequent instances of gun-related carnage and subsequent US inaction indicate either the absence of a 2011, or about 89 guns per 100 people. The state with the second highest number of guns is India, which has normative framework to respond to gun violence or a framework that prescribes nonintervention. Some may four times the population of the US. The state with argue that polarization and hesitation to infringe upon the second highest rate of gun ownership is Yemen, the Second Amendment indicate absence of a norm. with an estimated 55 guns per 100 people. US rates However, the history of failed attempts to regulate of gun ownership are not easily disassociated with small arms suggests the presence of both a norm (loose unparalleled rates of firearm-related homicides per

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics regulation) and competing domestic factions dedicated to either changing or protecting this precedent.

Challenges to the Domestic Norm Though it is clear a pro-control faction exists in the United States, the difficulty of their task has become increasingly apparent in recent months. In the past two years alone, the US has witnessed three public mass shootings resulting in ten or more casualties each.26 In various analyses of these shootings, three central contributing factors have emerged: failure to identify and appropriately treat violent symptoms of mental illness, easy access to firearms despite mental instability, and possession of high-capacity magazines. It is arguable that all these factors are due to and part of the larger norm of loose regulation.

Behavioral health professionals, journalists, and procontrol activists claim that these, among other factors, intensified the lethality of recent mass shootings.27 One of the three mass shootings, the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, claimed the lives of 20 children between the ages of six and seven, as well as six adults. Though the shooter’s primary weapon, a semiautomatic rifle, was purchased legally by his mother (who was also killed in the rampage), high-capacity magazines inflicted maximum damage. The shooter carried hundreds of rounds of ammunition and reloaded frequently. All victims were hit multiple times; autopsies revealed some children were shot as many as 11 times.28 The other two aforementioned shootings, the Aurora movie theater massacre and the Navy Yard shooting in Washington, D.C., were committed by men suffering from verifiable mental illness. Both men had displayed signs of mental illness and potential aggression prior to the respective shootings. The

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psychiatrist treating James Holmes, who killed 12 and injured nearly 60 people in the Aurora movie theater shooting, warned law enforcement that Holmes had confessed to homicidal thoughts and was “a danger to the public.”29 The psychiatrist did not, however, involuntarily commit Holmes for a 72-hour psychiatric observation period.30 The shortcomings of this process allowed Holmes to pass background checks and purchase multiple firearms over the course of several months.

Federal law requires firearm dealers to notify authorities when a customer purchases multiple firearms within a five-day period. Holmes avoided such notification by purchasing weapons from different dealers over an extended, but relatively short, period of time.31 Likewise, Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis passed a standard background check despite having committed a gun-related crime in previous years and displaying delusional behavior.32 These two cases demonstrate linkage between different domestic normative frameworks. A normative process that fails in one area can lead to failure of the second regulatory structure. Though background checks are not a strong or deeply entrenched norm in the United States, success of these checks depends on consistent implementation of behavioral health norms.

When this normative safety net fails, the weakness of the domestic background check system is amplified.

Perhaps the most widely publicized example of this failed linkage is the 2007 Virginia Tech Massacre, which claimed the lives of 32 students and faculty members. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in US history. The shooter, SeungHui Cho, was able to pass background checks and buy two different guns despite having been formally “adjudicated as a mental defective” and “an imminent danger to himself ” and others by a judge in 2005.33 It

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is indisputable that federal law should have prohibited Cho from purchasing guns based on this evaluation; Virginia’s failure to “flag” Cho highlights the weakness of state enforcement in federal background checks.34 Between the Virginia Tech shooting in April 2007 and the end of October 2013, the number of mass shootings in the US reached 146.35 Reacting to what he called an ‘epidemic’ of gun violence, President Barack Obama began his second term by prioritizing the pro-control network’s goals on his domestic agenda. In a January press conference, roughly a month after the Sandy Hook shooting, Obama vowed “to use whatever weight this office holds to make (stricter gun control measures) a reality.”36 In 2013, the president signed more than 20 executive orders designed to curb gun violence.

The orders include, but are not limited to, requiring federal agencies to provide relevant data to the federal background check system, creating incentives for states to provide information to the background check system, developing emergency plans for active shooter situations, and directing the Center for Disease Control to research the causes of gun violence.37 However, Obama acknowledged that these executive orders are limited and are “in no way a substitute for actions from members of Congress.”38 Among the most prominent and legitimized norm entrepreneurs within the pro-control network is former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords, among 17 others, was shot by a mentally ill gunman during a meeting with constituents in January 2011.

Though many of those shot—including a nine-yearold girl—were killed, Gifford survived critical injuries after extensive brain surgery. Over the course of the next few years, Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, have been vocal advocates for stricter regulation of guns. Weeks after the Sandy Hook shooting and on

the second anniversary of the Tucson mass shooting, Giffords founded the non-profit “Americans for Responsible Solutions,” dedicated to strengthening background checks, limiting the sale of high-capacity magazines, and limiting the sale of assault weapons.

The US public generally seemed to concur with both Giffords’ and the president’s prescriptions following Sandy Hook. Days after the Sandy Hook shooting, a Gallup Poll found that 58% of those surveyed supported stricter gun laws. Though this percentage has dropped significantly (in October 2013, 49% supported stricter gun laws) there is still considerable public support for reforms.39 But even with this support and Obama’s efforts, a bipartisan effort to expand background checks, ban assault weapons and ban high-capacity magazines was blocked in the Senate in April 2013.40 Following the vote, a Gallup poll found that 65% of Americans thought the Senate should have passed the measure.41 Agents and Structures Promoting Norm Endurance Events such as the Sandy Hook massacre, the Aurora theater shooting, and the Navy Yard shooting, which might seem likely catalysts for norm upheaval, have done little to initiate reform. The power of the pro-gun network and the entrenchment of the gun-ownership norm, when confronted with direct challenges and innumerable innocent victims, persist to a surprising degree. In the face of this norm, representative democracy struggles to respond, and the president is limited in his ability to create substantive policy. The structure of US government necessitates that legislators be the primary agents of policy change.

Structural norm deconstruction and shift depends on elected officials who have thus far been unresponsive to a plurality of citizens willing to support a new norm of regulation in the event of a cascade. Loose

US Role in Construction of International Small Arms Control regulation is more engrained in Congress than in any other US political structure. This unshakeable entrenchment is largely due to the protection and ownership of this norm by the gun lobby, namely, the National Rifle Association (NRA).

With roughly four million members as of January 2013, the NRA is the largest ‘civil liberties organization’ in the world. Since it was founded in 1871, the NRA has established itself as a major agent in the transnational pro-gun network and general American culture and politics, specifically legislative politics. In the contemporary normative political structure, the NRA is the primary protector of the status quo. The NRA’s ability to mobilize and draw on the support of its members magnifies this influence.

Nearly 95% of NRA members vote in federal elections, and candidates supported by the NRA have an 81% success rate in state legislative races (Grillot 2011, 541).

With this degree of electoral power, the NRA is able to sway legislators a great deal. The NRA’s lobbying group, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA), actively lobbies members of Congress to support measures that protect or increase the rights of gun owners and oppose regulation on guns. The ILA threatens legislators with political consequences if they do not support NRA interests. As part of these efforts, the NRA rates sitting members of Congress, as well as candidates, on a scale of ‘A to F’ based on their voting record or stance on gun regulations. Immediately after the Sandy Hook shooting, 242 members of the House and 46 members of the Senate received a grade of ‘A’ from the NRA, indicating legislative support for the established norm.42 These tactics exemplify the agent-structure problem: the NRA must work within the US political structure by lobbying Congress, and lawmakers must play by the existing rules and appease the NRA to be successful in their careers.

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The NRA also benefits from a larger normative structure in US politics: an electoral system that requires significant financial expenditure to mount successful political campaigns. In the last federal election cycle, the NRA spent nearly $19 million dollars to oppose both Democrats and Republicans who supported stricter regulations on firearms.43 Legislators and the American public have been socialized over time to accept lenient campaign finance regulations and the NRA’s resulting lobbying power. Lawmakers seeking election or reelection risk losing to an NRA-backed opponent if they definitively oppose the norm of loose regulation.

In essence, the NRA uses its considerable spending power to pressure politicians into taking status-quo positions and to discourage the emergence of norm entrepreneurs within the legislature. Clifford Bob notes that the “US government, especially under Republican administrations, listens to the NRA and often acts as the group wishes” (2012, 129).

In addition to its legislative power, the NRA also has direct influence over the general public. The NRA appeals to the public to ensure that popular support for a new regulatory norm does not reach critical mass (at which point legislators might be compelled to respond). As previously mentioned, fear and need for protection are the primary motives for contemporary gun owners. The NRA recognizes the culture of fear and perpetuates compliance with the norm by capitalizing on and further constructing this culture; in fact, this has been one of the most successful tactics for the pro-gun network as a whole.

This sense of danger creates yet another normative structure that thwarts the pro-control network’s agenda.

The NRA uses language that “names, interprets, and dramatizes” the situation in order to protect the

60 existing norm (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 897).

The language used by the NRA constructs the notion that citizens cannot be safe without owning a firearm.

In a press conference following the Sandy Hook shooting, executive vice president Wayne LaPierre told Americans that society is “populated with an unknown number of genuine monsters – people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day.”44 Rather than suggesting, as the pro-control network would, that such people could be reformed or prevented from obtaining weapons, LaPierre told the crowd that the “only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”45 This has since become the signature refrain of the NRA and supporters of the gun lobby.

The NRA is perhaps the most influential actor within the pro-gun network. The organization has been registered as a UN-recognized NGO since 1996.

During the process that culminated in the UN General Assembly’s approval of the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty, the NRA lobbied against the treaty by connecting the international arms trade to domestic gun ownership.

The NRA continues to claim that the treaty is a violation of the Second Amendment. In actuality, the text of the treaty vows to “(reaffirm) the sovereign right of any State to regulate and control conventional arms exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or constitution system” (UNODA 2013).

This provision is undoubtedly directed towards the US. It is an appeasement, a way of quelling US fears that the domestic right to keep and bear arms will be violated. Even Secretary of State John Kerry has assured legislators and the American public that the treaty “recognizes the freedom of both individuals and states to obtain, possess and use arms for legitimate purposes”.46 Despite these assurances, the NRA has

refused to diverge from its stance. NRA spokespeople lobby members of Congress to resist ratification, appealing especially to those who resist ‘world government’ on principle.

International Internalization and Norm-mirroring Given the NRA’s influence at the state and systemic levels, as well as other conditions that construct US gun culture, it is hardly surprising that no substantive regulatory measures have emerged in the international sphere. Generally, “norms backed by great-power consensus are more likely to be diffused to and accepted by other members of the international system” (Grillot 2011, 534). In essence, systemic level norms mirror hegemonic norms, and US hegemony has gone unchallenged since the end of the Cold War. This concentration of power ensures that the international system is unlikely to undertake major collective changes without the participation of the United States. For example, while other great powers such as Russia and China have also been hesitant to support comprehensive regulatory efforts, their compliance is far less essential in the current system.47 Even if these two states were to support and comply with the norm-building process for greater regulation, norm cascade and internalization would be unlikely without the US. The US is not likely limit its own domestic interests without significant cross pressure from an equal power.

In essence, the US is the normative template with which states must contend, even if they do not conform to or internalize US norms, or embrace the domestic gun lobby. While other developed states may resist or resent the leniency of US gun control norms, developing states are more vulnerable to hegemonic normative influence. Less developed states, those most damaged by unchecked small arms proliferation,

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics are likely to adopt the US norm of loose regulation.

According to Sterling-Folker, this inclination is not surprising since a “pattern to constructing social reality…is the tendency to emulate the social practices of the powerful” (2002, 88).

Without stable domestic infrastructure to regulate small arms, states will conform to the status quo: the international norm the US has intentionally established. Even in states that desire more regulation of small arms, inability to enforce gun laws or monitor the channels of supply results in lack of regulation. For example, Honduras, which is the most violent country in the world and has the highest rate of gun violence (68.43 homicides by firearm per 100,000 people), is unable to curb such violence or regulate firearms due to unstable and corrupt law enforcement and judicial systems.48 The linkage between domestic and systemic gun control norms is especially apparent in this contemporary unipolar system. The norm of loose regulation originates at the state level in the sole hegemon and becomes accepted at the systemic level. Whether states resist this norm, internalize it consciously, or internalize it by default, the norm dominates the international system and permeates the domestic culture of less developed states. The regulatory effect of the United States’ gun control norm is somewhat paradoxical because it ensures no multilateral regulation. As previously emphasized, this lack of regulation should not be equated with absence of a norm. Though some scholars disagree (Grillot 2011), an international norm has not failed to materialize in this area. Rather, the international norm mirrors the pro-gun network’s prescription. The United States’ lack of domestic gun control laws has thwarted multilateral efforts to regulate small arms at the systemic level, and will continue to do so without

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fundamental change at the state level.

Prescriptions and Conclusions As this paper has outlined, creating an international framework to regulate small arms is futile, if not impossible, without dissolution of the United States’ current domestic norms and emergence of new ones. Though the US domestic normative framework has resisted challenges thus far, normative overhaul is still a possibility in the future. A large part of this possibility would depend on a shift in congressional ideology. As previously mentioned, domestic norm-building potential lies mainly in the legislative branch.

Though Congress is currently the most politically and ideologically polarized it has ever been, midterm elections in 2014 may usher in centrist newcomers.49 Since the unpopular federal government shutdown in October 2013, congressional Republicans’ approval ratings have steadily declined. Roughly 72% of Americans disapproved of the shutdown, and a plurality of the public blamed congressional Republicans, specifically those belonging to the Tea Party faction, for forcing and continuing the shutdown that lasted for 16 days.50 Though midterm elections are still months away, congressional turnover remains a real possibility. If 2014 brings new legislators who are somewhat more receptive to the administration’s gun control initiatives, it is likely that Obama will reinitiate his campaign to enact stricter domestic controls.

Another factor that could potentially lead to congressional action and norm building, though tragic and damaging, is the number, frequency, and location of mass shootings that occur within the next several years. If the United States witnesses an even sharper increase in the frequency of mass shootings, if the shootings begin to exhibit record

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numbers of fatalities, and/or if legislators themselves are threatened by loose gun regulations, it is possible that congressional pressure to act will reach a tipping point and result in a norm contagion. Additionally, if the NRA’s prescriptions are implemented and prove to be ineffective, it is possible that public and legislative allegiance to the NRA would diminish. If this were to happen, Congress might feel greater pressure from constituents to construct substantive gun reform norms. However, as previously noted, current domestic gun control norms are surprisingly resistant to such challenges, no matter how emotionally charged.

Another possibility for domestic normative change, though nearly implausible, would be revision of the Constitution. If there were a powerful and convincing coalition of revisionist norm entrepreneurs in both state and federal legislatures, the United States could theoretically revise the Constitution to provide a more specific and stringent set of standards for gun ownership. Essentially, this solution would amount to an overhaul of the Second Amendment. However, this resolution will assuredly not occur in the foreseeable future. Reverence of the Second Amendment notwithstanding, amending the Constitution is a highly involved process that requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by threefourths of states. It is possible that threats of secession would precede and thwart such a process.

As it stands, the international system is stymied, relying on the US to commit to the process of domestic norm building. The 2013 Arms Trade Treaty may guide the efforts of other states and effect some regulatory changes; but US action, political makeup and international standing in the coming years will ultimately decide the fate of global small arms regulation.

Endnotes 1 This paper uses the United Nations’ definition of small arms as revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, sub-machine guns, assault rifles and light machine guns (UNODA 2013). While small arms and light weapons are often discussed as ‘conventional weapons,’ this paper’s focus will be limited to small arms.

2 Alan Cowell and Rick Gladstone, “Inspectors in Syria Have Only One Site Left to Check,” New York Times, November 7, 2013, accessed June 15, 2014, http:// tinyurl.com/pyh58ec; and Neil MacFarquhar, “U.N. Treaty Is First Aimed at Regulating Global Arms Sales,” New York Times, April 2, 2013, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/q5m6kn6.

3 The Editorial Board, “Containing the Conventional Arms Trade,” New York Times, September 30, 2013, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/pr8zsfp.

4 The Editorial Board, “Containing.”

5 Suzette R. Grillot, whose work contributes considerably to this paper, has argued that “competing coalitions” are to blame for lack of international regulation (2011). This paper seeks to build upon this argument by narrowing the focus and identifying one single competing factor for lack of regulation.

6 This paper uses Clifford Bob’s terms, “pro-gun” and “pro-control”, to identify the competing networks (2012).

7 As previously mentioned, the term ‘conventional weapons’ includes small arms. Thus, the Arms Trade Treaty is intended to regulate small arms as well as other weapons.

8 MacFarquhar, “U.N. Treaty Is First.”

US Role in Construction of International Small Arms Control 9 MacFarquhar, “U.N. Treaty Is First.”

10 MacFarquhar, “U.N. Treaty Is First.”

11 MacFarquhar, “U.N. Treaty Is First.”

12 The Firearms Protocol is also called the “Protocol Against the Illicit Manufacturing and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime.”

The Program of Action is also known as the “Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.”

13 Russia and China have also been notoriously resistant to increased regulations. Though they are not the focus of this paper, Russia and China will also be important actors in determining the Arms Trade Treaty’s success.

14 MacFarquhar, “U.N. Treaty Is First.”

15 U.S. Constitution, amend. 2.

16 U.S. Constitution, amend. 2; Legal Information Institute, “The Second Amendment,” Cornell University School of Law, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/d4s4cnf.

17 U.S. Constitution, amend. 10.

18 Perhaps the best example of this is the Brady Act of 1993, which established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Under federal law, it is illegal for a person adjudicated mental defective, involuntarily committed to a mental institution, or incompetent to handle his or her own affairs to own or receive a firearm. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, “National Instant Criminal Background Check

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System Fact Sheet,” accessed June 15, 2014, http:// tinyurl.com/7zlzcu8. While 44 states regulate the sale of firearms to the mentally ill, few states submit the names of prohibited mentally ill individuals to the national database that would keep firearms out of their hands. See Matthew DeLuca, “Background Checks for Guns: What You Need to Know,” NBC News, April 10, 2013, accessed June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ q8b9ad5.

19 U.S. Constitution, amend. 10.

20 Gallup, “Guns,” October 3-6, 2013, accessed June 16, 2014, http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns. aspx. Sixty percent of gun owners said personal safety/ protection was their main motivation for owning a gun, followed by hunting (36%), unspecified recreation (13%), and target shooting (8%). Percentages total more than 100% due to multiple responses.

21 Gallup, “Guns.”

22 Washington Post, “Gun Homicides and Gun Ownership by Country,” December 17, 2012, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/c53hytw.

23 Legal Information Institute, “The Second.”

24 Legal Information Institute, “The Second.”

25 This paper uses the FBI definition of ‘mass killing’ as a killing spree resulting in four or more casualties.

This term includes both public and non-public killings (including robberies and mass homicides occurring in families) and does not exclusively refer to firearmrelated deaths. See USA Today, “Since 2006, More Than 200 Mass Killings in the U.S.,” September 19, 2013, accessed June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/moaozj3.

26 USA Today, “Since 2006.”

64 27 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “From Gun Availability to a Lack of Therapists, Experts Say Many Factors Contribute to the Spate of Killing,” HealthDay News, December 21, 2012, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/pnmu3pz.

28 James Barron, “Children Were All Shot Multiple Times with a Semiautomatic, Officials Say,” New York Times, December 15, 2012, accessed June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/cbpxjo8.

29 John Ingold, “Aurora Theater Shooting Documents: Doctor Reported James Holmes Was Threat to Public,” Denver Post, April 4, 2013, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/c53hytw.

30 Ingold, “Aurora Theater Shooting.”

31 Michelle Castillo, “Colo. Shooter Purchased Guns Legally from 3 Different Stores,” CBS News, July 20, 2012, accessed June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ knyepvw.

32 Craig Whitlock, “Aaron Alexis Didn’t Report Gun Arrest during Background Check, Received Clearance,” Washington Post, September 23, 2013, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/lslh7c2.

37 New York Times, “White House Gun Proposals,” January 16, 2013, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl. com/lds4og8.

38 New York Times, “Full Transcript of President.”

39 Gallup, “Guns.”

40 Jonathan Weisman, “Senate Blocks Drive for Gun Control,” New York Times, April 17, 2013, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ck7albu.

41 Gallup, “Guns.”

42 New York Times, “How the N.R.A. Rates Lawmakers,” December 19, 2012, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/a4oq99h.

43 Richard W. Painter, “The NRA Protection Racket,” New York Times, December 19, 2012, accessed June 17, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/btfnkzf.

44 Emphasis in original. New York Times, “Text of the N.R.A. Speech,” December 21, 2013, accessed June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/nc7rurk.

45 New York Times, “Text of the N.R.A.” 46 The Editorial Board, “Containing.”

33 Michael Luo, “U.S. Rules Made Killer Ineligible to Purchase Gun,” New York Times, April 21, 2007, accessed June 16, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/plv9okg.

47 Russia and China both abstained from the April 2013 Arms Trade Treaty vote. See MacFarquhar, “U.N. Treaty Is First.”

34 Luo, “U.S. Rules.”

48 Washington Post, “Gun Homicides;” and Freedom House, “Freedom in the World: Honduras,” accessed June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/omy97wj. If it is ratified and reaches its legal potential, the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has a provision to offer international aid to such vulnerable states upon request (UNODA 2014). However, without US ratification, it is unclear what effect the 2013 ATT will have.

35 USA Today, “Since 2006.”

36 New York Times, “Full Transcript of President Obama’s Press Conference,” January 14, 2013, accessed June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/oz44dc7.

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics 49 Chris Cillizza, “The Death of the Political Middle,” The Washington Post, October 28, 2013, accessed June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/pmy7s2f.

50 Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto, and Fred Backus, “Poll: Americans Not Happy about Shutdown; More Blame GOP,” CBS News, October 3, 2013, accessed June 15, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ pzwfgdr.

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La Educación para la Liberación: The Chilean Student Movement in 2011 Clara Maeder Bates College In 2011 a historic period of student demonstrations known as the ‘Winter of Discontent’ began in Chile. Although these student contentious actions were not unprecedented, they had not occurred since the Pinochet dictatorship. This article asks why these events took place in 2011, and what these events tell us about broader social movement and contentious political patterns in Latin America in periods following dictatorships. This work shows that the 2011 events were rooted in a history of tensions around economic and educational inequality in Chile, and that the organizations and networks that enabled students to mobilize effectively during the Winter of Discontent date back to the 1950s. I argue that it was President Piñera’s election in 2010 that gave rise to a series of political opportunity structures for the movement to resume contentious action.

Introduction In August 2011 Chilean university students and their families went to the streets. The organizers of the march expected 300,000 participants at most, but over 500,000 people arrived (McIntyre 2012).

They almost could not proceed because the number of supporters who arrived filled the blocks designated for the march.1 According to one university student, a “huge percentage of the population supported the students because the reasons to protest were so rapidly diffused…It was really a historic period that left nobody indifferent.”2 This event marked the culmination of the Chilean ‘Winter of Discontent’, a period characterized by student marches, strikes, and occupations. The students successfully put classes on hold at major universities throughout the country. At its peak, half a million citizens regularly marched for the student movement, an impressive number in a country of 17 million people.

What sparked the student movement’s actions in 2011? What were the implications of Chile’s

dictatorial history and resulting inequalities on its form? Understanding these questions sheds light on our understanding of processes of democratization and social movement patterns in Latin America, especially following dictatorships.

Several scholars have investigated the Chilean student movement in recent years. They have examined students as political subjects and their ability to bring about change (Pousadela 2013); the events of 2011 (Segovia and Gamboa 2012); cycles of youth mobilization (Aguilera 2012); the movement’s connection to similar movements around the world (Guzman-Concha 2012); and the student resistance as a challenge to neoliberalism and Pinochet’s legacy (Gaudichaud 2011; McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011; Stromquist and Sanyal 2013). An examination of why these events occurred in 2011, rather than at a previous point in time, is missing.

Based on evidence drawn from interviews with past and present student movement leaders and participants, I find that the 2011 actions of the

68 movement were a result of both contextual and actorcentered variables. 2011 was not, in fact, the beginning of the Chilean student movement, but the start of a new contentious phase of the student movement that has existed since the time of the Pinochet dictatorship, if not before.3 Policy shifts that made Chile’s educational structures significantly more unequal and the election of President Piñera created political opportunities for the political organization and action of Chile’s university students in 2011. University student federations brought together by the nationwide Confederation of Chilean Students (CONFECH) determined the scope of the action and the ability of the student movement to persist over time.

In the following pages I begin by discussing scholarly approaches to social movements. Next, I describe the 2011 events at the heart of my research.

I then develop my argument in three parts. First I show that the historical roots of these events—the legacies of Pinochet and Allende and historical class and educational inequalities—were instrumental in mobilizing action, while educational policy changes and Piñera’s election created the political opportunity structure for the movement to reach a critical point in 2011. A subsequent section explains that organizational structures specific to university students made these actions possible. I conclude by considering what is to come for the Chilean student movement in the future.

Conceptualizing Social Movements Political opportunity structures, considered in conjunction with social movement organization and network literature, serves as the theoretical basis for analyzing factors that led to the student movement’s 2011 actions. For the purposes of this paper, I use a synthesized definition of a social movement. A social

movement is a “network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/ or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity” (Diani 1992, 13).

Note that this definition does not require social movements to be involved in visible political conflicts.

Mario Diani points out that visible contentious actions are only one part of social movement experiences, as “even when they are not engaged in campaigns and mobilizations, social movements can still be active” (1992, 6-7). That is, although movements may only mobilize occasionally, they may continue to be active in collective identity development.

Two core theoretical frameworks for understanding social movements are useful in analyzing the Chilean student movement: 1) political opportunity structures and 2) mobilizing structures. I explain each in turn below. The theory of political opportunity structures offers a way of understanding why people engage in contentious politics. According to John McCarthy, this theory interprets the emergence, form, and development of a movement as a collective response to the state (1998, 255). Sidney Tarrow explains further, asserting that citizens act contentiously when they perceive and respond to changes in political opportunity structures (2011). These changes in opportunity “lower the costs of collective action, reveal potential allies, show where elites and authorities are most vulnerable, and trigger social networks and collective identities into action around common themes” (Tarrow 2011, 33).

Opportunity structures are especially influential and relevant to the emergence of contentious actions when “combined with high levels of threat but declining capacity for repression” (Tarrow 2011, 160).

Despite widespread acceptance of the political

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics opportunity structure framework, Tarrow himself explains the importance of contextualizing the theory in its application and of considering how it varies depending on different historical and political circumstances (2011, 32). Latin America is unique in that, as Diane Davis explains, state and class structures have been historically embedded in each other (1999, 598). This signifies that “some of the most mobilized societal actors in Latin America are in many cases also ‘state’ actors…who…organize independently and use languages and autonomy in their struggles with the state” (Davis 1999, 598). The opening and liberalization of politics that came with the third wave of democracy have contributed to undermining the fluid relationship between state and societal actors, and therefore created significant political opportunity structures.

Mobilizing structures make it possible for social movements to respond to political opportunities.

McCarthy describes them as the “more or less formally organized everyday life patterns upon which movements build collective action” (1998, 249).

Diani characterizes them as “informal interactions involving individuals, groups, and organizations” (1992, 7). These structures are especially important in the development of a movement’s collective identity and repertoires of contention, the “routine mix of strategies and tactics” that social movements employ, for example, protests and occupations (McCarthy 1998, 257). Repertoires of action encompass, according to Tarrow, “not only what people do when they make a claim; [but]…what they know how to do” (1993, 283).

In some cases, mobilizing structures include preexisting organizations and networks that support a movement. Isabella Alcañiz and Melissa Scheier assert that these organizations and networks are key factors in the emergence of social movements because

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they provide spaces for the sustained exchange of social resources and communication, which maintain collective action and allow movements to more easily overcome obstacles to acting collectively (2007, 161).

Organizations and networks can also provide structure for the development of new organizations and new social movements. Doug McAdams, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly explain how these ideas fit into the social movement definition I presented above: “networks/organizations can sustain social movements outside of just collective action and contentious episodes” (2001, 49). Networks and organizations, therefore, play a vital role in the regeneration of social movements and the moments in which social movements resume contentious action.

Research Methods

In the following paragraphs I evaluate the Chilean student movement in light of the preceding theories. The evidence, including the description of events, draws from ten personal interviews with present and past student movement leaders and participants in Chile in October 2013; eight written interviews conducted through questionnaires with Chilean university students at the University of Playa Ancha, where I studied abroad in 2013; primary sources including local and international news reports and archived student federation publications; and academic articles.

The Chilean Student Movement in 2011

The events began in late April, at the beginning of the southern hemisphere’s winter and continued until November, the end of the school year.

Throughout this period, Chile’s university students demanded the democratization of their country and fought for the end of the unchanged political and

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Maeder

economic model implemented over twenty years ago “within two weeks…[their] campaign had managed

by Pinochet (McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 29-30). to articulate a more general demand to enforce the Many Chileans claim that the events represent Chile’s existing ban on profit in higher education and to largest protests since the 1980s or even the 1960s, strengthen government regulation of private university when previous generations of students also mobilized operations” (Pousadela 2013, 687). politically to demand reforms (Gaudichaud 2011, 2; The movement rapidly gained momentum over McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 32). the next five months. The National Chilean Student In 2011, under the leadership of two Confederation (CONFECH) organized the first charismatic students, Camila Vallejo and Giorgio march, which occurred shortly after the protests at the Jackson, the students placed education at the center of UCentral. A second demonstration in May mobilized the public agenda and opened doors to discussions of 15,000 people in Santiago and was endorsed by the financial reforms that would permit major educational National Workers Council and the Teachers Federation reforms. Political parties from both of Chile’s major (Pousadela 2013, 687). coalitions were unable to engage the students in In his May 21st Cuenta Pública,5 President productive conversations concerning their interests Piñera declared that 2011 would be the year of higher and demands. As a result, the events of 2011 set in education. He cited reforms to the quality of education motion a national discussion regarding the need to adopted in February 2011, and announced the reform Chile’s two-party system. During the Winter of creation of the Agencia de Calidad y Superintendencia Discontent, two ministers of education resigned and de Educación Escolar. After the speech, students Piñera’s approval rating, after just one year in office, fell responded through demonstrations directed at the to a historic low. By November the students had not president to present their demands for a set of reforms achieved concrete policy changes in response to their to Chile’s educational system. They defined their demands, but had successfully redefined the public immediate objectives as: free education, the end of foragenda. profit education, democratization of the educational The first demonstrations took place at the system, the end of debt for students and their families Central University of Chile (UCentral), a private and self-financing for universities, and equitable access university in Santiago, where students protested the to quality education for all (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, potential sale of their university to a for-profit holding 69). 6 company. The students went on strike from classes and The students’ actions escalated throughout occupied their school buildings to prevent the sale, the month of May. They went on strike from their which represented, in their view, a clear application classes and occupied their school buildings, effectively 4 of neoliberal ideals to the university system. Despite preventing classes in universities and high schools the fact that they were protesting an event specific throughout Chile, culminating in a nationwide to their university, the neoliberal ideology they education strike on May 21st (Gaudichaud 2011, 1). challenged would become a central theme of the A month later, on June 30th, close to half a million nationwide demonstrations that soon followed. people mobilized throughout Chile in support of the The UCentral students seemed to be aware of this: students’ demand for a new model of public education;

The Chilean Student Movement in 2011 200,000 Chilean citizens marched in Santiago alone (Gaudichaud 2011, 1; McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 30).

The students’ actions continued to gain traction in the following months, and began to have real effects on government and on Chilean society beyond students and their families. Minister of Education Joaquin Lavín was forced to resign in July (Gaudichaud 2011, 2). In August the streets once again filled with student protesters and their supporters, especially in Santiago where 500,000 people protested in the streets on August 9th (Gaudichaud 2011, 1). On August 21st nearly one million people came together to support the students’ actions and to put pressure on the government during a daylong event in Santiago’s O’Higgins Park (McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 30).

At the end of August, the United Workers Confederation (CUT) organized two days of nationwide strikes to demand a new labor code and a public pension system, and to show support for the students’ demands. This two-day strike was considered the longest strike since the end of dictatorship (Gaudichaud 2011, 1-2; McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 30). Following this nationwide show of support for the movement, the Chilean government finally declared itself open to negotiations with student leaders (Gaudichaud 2011, 3).

Student leaders first met with government officials on September 3rd (McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 34). Neither party made statements following the meeting. But shortly after, the students presented several specific conditions they required the government to satisfy if they were to participate.

In sum, the students required their negotiations to be free of political and financial influences, transparent, and directly related to their demands (Gaudichaud

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2011, 3). New Minister of Education Felipe Bulnes challenged several of their conditions explicitly and, on the same day, student leader Francisco Figueroa publically rejected the minister’s counterproposals and announced the movement’s plan for a national demonstration on September 22nd.

Approximately 300,000 people participated in the September 22nd marches and protests across the country. Only one week later, close to 150,000 people once again marched in the streets (Gaudichaud 2011, 3; McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 34). This period of massive support on the streets for the students’ demands was marked by publication of a public opinion survey, which compared current President Piñera’s public approval to that of the student movement. The survey revealed that 22% of the public approved of President Piñera, while 72% approved of the student movement (McIntyre 2012, 27).

As the year – and, more relevant to the students, the winter semester – came to a close, the movement appeared to have lost steam. The students were faced with issues of resuming classes and completing their coursework or losing a semester of their university education. The government threatened to cut scholarships, including those for transportation and food, for students that could not prove they were enrolled in classes. In addition, summer vacation was approaching. The students at the University of Chile and the Catholic University of Chile eventually voted to resume classes. After these prominent schools ended their participation, the movement was not able to receive enough media coverage, attention, or support to continue.7 Despite this anti-climatic end, the 2011 Chilean student movement actions changed the way students interact with their universities and their government, and the way Chileans think about and discuss

72 neoliberalism and inequality in their country. Since 2011 the student movement has not faded away; there have been several periods of strikes, occupations and marches propelled by the same set of demands sought by the students in 2011.

Repertoire of Actions

The students’ repertoire of actions included protests, marches, strikes and school occupations.

Marches and protests were met with police repression, most often resulting in student crowds being sprayed with tear gas and student arrests. School occupations, in particular, built community within the movement and resulted in new, more creative ways of sharing their cause.8 These creative actions included an 1,800-second long kiss-in for education; an 1,800-hour-long relay around Chile’s presidential palace ($1800 million represented roughly 2.2% of Chile’s GDP, roughly the amount that it would take to fully fund free public education); and a public dance of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, to represent the education system as they saw it – dying (Frens-String 2013, 30; McIntyre, 2012, 26). The movement also utilized methods reminiscent of the protests against Pinochet such as cacerolazos, the mass banging of pots outside of windows and doors (McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 30). CONFECH and university federations used Facebook and Twitter to coordinate these actions.

Demands The student movement first and foremost demands free and quality education that ensures all students the right to education and advocates for the end of for-profit education.9 The students also call for reforms of the systems that promote inequality of access to higher education. These include making the University Selection Exam accessible to students

with less financial and social resources; requiring universities to have institutional transparency, tolerance and pluralism; and providing access to students with disabilities. The movement also demands the restructuring of the scholarship and loan system in Chile to ensure scholarships are available to students who need them, a decline of interest rates on state-backed loans, and extension of ‘maintenance’ scholarships, including food and transportation stipends.10 Another widely supported demand requests a National Student Card that is free and valid for the entire year.11 Considered together, these demands are complex and require a complete change of the economic and political systems of Chile. The students recognize that without tax reform and the renationalization of the copper mines, the state cannot have the resources necessary to invest more funds in education. Because of this, outside of the two categories named above, one more demand exists – the demand to convene a constitutional assembly to amend the present constitution, that is, to recreate the constitution by way of referendum.12 The movement’s actions and demands in 2011 reflect an important change in the political and social attitudes of Chilean citizens: the reclaiming of protest as a way of acting politically. These methods of voicing opinions about the government had not been commonplace since Chile’s return to democracy in 1990, despite the fact that they had been used many times before, throughout Chile’s history. Why did protest reemerge in 2011, 20 years after the end of dictatorship? What tensions had built up in Chilean society that caused such an explosion of contentious action? Why did the student movement, in particular, act with so much support and at the national level? I address these questions in the next sections.

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics Building Tensions

The university students’ actions in 2011 were deeply rooted in the history of Chilean politics, the persistent inequality that exists in the country, and the structure of the Chilean education system itself. Each factor plays a role in the students’ discontent.

The Historical Context of Chile: The Memory of Allende and the Policies of Pinochet

On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet ousted the socialist government of Salvador Allende in a military coup, installing a military junta with himself at the head. The new government began to implement policies influenced by the neoliberal economic ideology of Milton Friedman and his students, the ‘Chicago Boys’, which greatly contrasted with Allende’s policies. The new regime privatized state assets, including the copper industry, and applied neoliberal thought to public service provision, most notably, education. In 1980 the Pinochet regime solidified its influence by establishing a new Chilean constitution.

Chile’s educational system changed dramatically during this period: administrative responsibilities were decentralized and transferred to municipal governments, free public university education was abolished, and the accreditation of private educational institutes was made drastically easier (Pousadela 2013, 686). Most significant to the movement, university student federations were dismantled and new, pro-Pinochet student groups were created in their place.

Many of these policies were put into effect by the Ley Orgánica Constitucional de Enseñanza (the LOCE). “Educación del bien del mercado,” meaning ‘education by the good of the market’, marked a new policy principle that implied that the cost of university

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education would be determined in relation to what a student could earn after they graduated, depending on their major.13 Before 1973 education was financed by a system in which students and their families paid tuition on a sliding scale, according to their resources.

The resulting drastic shift in university funding opportunities was jarring. University enrollment dropped significantly (Loveman 1986/1987, 9) and education became an increasingly elitist institution.

Unequal access to quality education perpetuated maldistribution of wealth and the presence of small groups of elites in Chile.14

The Pinochet government enjoyed power for seventeen years, until popular protests culminated in a 1988 plebiscite that ended the dictatorship.

Nevertheless, Pinochet’s 1980 constitution and neoliberal economic model continue to influence the contemporary educational system. As a result of the policies of the Pinochet dictatorship, Chile experienced incredible economic growth, but also incredible inequality. Chile has the highest per capita income and one of the lowest poverty rates in Latin America.

However, huge differences exist between the incomes of the wealthiest citizens and those of the poorest.

Oscar Aguilera explains the “apparent paradox” of this inequality by describing the decreasing poverty and increasing inequality since Chile’s return to democracy: in 1990 the “richest 5 percent had incomes 130 times greater than the poorest 5 percent; in 2003… that gap had increased to 209 times” (2012, 74).

Student demonstrations are against the underlying national economic model, in addition to specific educational policies (McIntyre, 2012, 27).

The Educational System in Chile

Chile’s university system is one of the most unequal in the world. It excludes the poorest students

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and leaves graduates in enormous debt. It is estimated that 70% of Chilean university students “pay for their studies by taking long-term bank loans that will consume a high proportion of their future earnings” (Pousadela 2013, 686). Chilean higher education is the most expensive in Latin America and, when one considers costs in comparison with median salaries, one of the most expensive in the world. The Chilean state does not offer much assistance. State universities are of low quality and lack necessary funds. Students and their families finance around 84% of the costs of university education, while the state finances only 16%.

For example, the University of Chile only receives 14% of its budget from the state.15 The primary and secondary educational systems also influenced the movement’s 2011 actions.

Even before university, Chilean students receive remarkably unequal educations, depending on the type of institution they attend. Three drastically different school models exist: (1) municipal schools (funded by the state and widely considered inadequate), (2) subsidized schools (funded by the state, supplemented with tuition and attended by students from workingand middle-class families), and (3) private schools (funded by tuition and considered very privileged).16 Because of these inequalities, secondary students also played a role in the events of 2011. However, their actions first began in 2006.

The 2006 Penguin Revolution Chilean secondary students began to protest inequalities in their country through a series of strikes, occupations and demonstrations that became known as the ‘Penguin Revolution’ (because of students’ black and white school uniforms). The Penguin Revolution began after a municipal secondary school flooded.

Because funds were scarce, several weeks passed before

the municipal government was able to fix the damage and make the school suitable for resuming classes.17 Lacking a clean and dry building in which they could study, the students reacted. Their response sparked a mobilization of secondary students up and down the country that persisted for almost a year, involving 800,000 students and more than 950 schools (Aguilera 2012, 75).18 In response to los pingüinos (the penguins’) protests, the government changed the education law (the LOCE) to the LGE (the General Education Law).

However, students saw this change as merely a change in name rather than true reform.19 In many citizens’ opinions “almost none of the students’ substantive concerns had been addressed” (Frens-String 2013, 30).

Many university students today cite los pingüinos as an important factor in the rapid growth of the 2011 actions (Aguilera 2012; Frens-String 2013; McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011).20 According to Aguilera, since 2006 “there ha[s] been consensus that the national education system was in crisis” (2012, 75). One student described the Penguin Revolution as the “first big movement since [Chile’s] return to democracy,” and claimed that it provided the foundation for what would happen in 2011.21 Another contended it “was the first step in the recognition that students were becoming aware that the LOCE was not consistent with Chilean society’s current educational needs.”22 The protests of secondary students “revealed the gap between the real Chile and the topics discussed in the public sphere, showing that the latter had become a reverential dialogue between politics and the media” (Aguilera 2012, 76). They laid the groundwork for the university students in 2011, priming the Chilean government and citizens’ minds for the radical thinking about education that would become commonplace in 2011.

The historical context of Chile, the country’s

The Chilean Student Movement in 2011 extreme inequalities, and its system of education created the structures against which the student movement fought. The great disparities in opportunity sparked the student protests. This can be seen in the way students talk about their country and the demands they articulate. In particular, it is interesting to consider the movement’s reframing of education as a human right, in contrast to the government’s frame of education as a “bien de consumo” (consumer good).

Human rights discourse was salient because of human rights violations experienced by those imprisoned and tortured during the dictatorship. The students built upon human rights rhetoric prevalent after the dictatorship, asserting that Chilean citizens’ human rights should now include education.

The Pinochet dictatorship and the years that followed resulted in disenchantment with politics and politicians. Increasing frustration with an unequal system, born under a dictator, created an environment in which students felt they must radically mobilize.

The students’ collective actions were a response to the “growing realization among Chileans that their needs were not being met by the rigid and elitist political system or by the neoliberal economy” (McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 32). It is clear that these factors greatly influenced the start of the events of 2011. However, they do not provide an answer to the question: why 2011? And, why were the demonstrations that year so widely supported?

Piñera and Political Opportunity Structures Sebastián Piñera was elected President of Chile in 2010 as head of the first democratically elected right-wing government in Chile in over 50 years (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, 66). He succeeded nearly twenty years of left-leaning Presidents, each a member of the Concertación, a coalition of left-leaning political

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parties. In some scholars’ opinions, Piñera was not elected because of an increase in right-wing voters but because of a decrease in left-leaning, pro-Concertación voters. In other words, “the right did not win the election; the Concertación lost it” (Aguilera 2012, 82).

Piñera was elected with little support and big promises.

As a result of this new governing party, several political opportunity structures present in 2010 and 2011 influenced the development of the student movement’s actions. Scholars generally connect three dimensions of political opportunity structures with the appearance of social protest in Latin America: “1. The opening (liberalization) of the political process; 2. The presence of allies and support groups; and 3. Divisions within a regime” (Hipsher 1996, 155-156; see also Yashar 2005).

Changes in the Political Process

Piñera’s campaign promises demonstrated, at first, the potential of an opening in the political process. He promised to fill his administration with new faces, to promote economic growth, and to make 2011 the year of higher education reform (Stromquist and Sanyal 2013, 161). After twenty years of no real policy changes since the dictatorship, Chilean citizens were interested in the “new way of governing” he promised (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, 66).

At the beginning of his term, Piñera filled his cabinet with business experts and intellectuals. His stated purpose was to have a cabinet of the ‘best of the best’, not just politicians (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, 76). The administrative changes he promised presented the possibility of real change, and an opportunity to pursue it. However, Piñera’s first year in office was characterized by events for which his government was not prepared, including the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake and the rescue of 33 trapped miners.

In the realm of education, Piñera reneged

76 on his campaign promises, but not just because of events beyond his control. “Instead, he announced on the mass media an opposite reform proposal, clearly showing a preference to invest in strengthening the private system” (Stromquist and Sanyal 2013, 161).

It quickly became apparent that he would apply his conservative ideology to education, and previous hopes were muted.

The Chilean people began to see Piñera’s policies as posing a threat that needed to be addressed (Stromquist and Sanyal 2013, 161). As a posttransition democracy, twenty years past the Pinochet dictatorship, the government’s willingness to repress opposition had declined immensely. The high level of threat to the educational system, alongside the government’s declining willingness to repress its citizens, presented an opportunity for the students to act.

Divisions within the Government

The Piñera administration faced various challenges in 2010. Groups within the coalition that backed his presidency faced coordination problems and disagreements about government priorities (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, 66). At the beginning of his administration, Piñera appointed a few Senate members as his ministers in order to boost his political capacity. This resulted in Senate vacancies and a situation in which many voters were deprived of their representatives. In this vacuum, left-leaning senators took over the seats previously held by the right-wing politicians that Piñera had removed (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, 76). This gave the opposition party more power in the Senate and created further divisions between the legislature and the executive.

During the first half of 2011, several events that the executive was unable to resolve negatively affected

the government’s image. Legislative relationships between the governing party and the opposition were particularly unproductive. For example, during this period two politicians, Jacqueline van Rysselberghe and Magdalena Matte, were forced to resign from their posts after criminal accusations involving the misuse of government funds, despite the support of Piñera’s political coalition (see Segovia and Gamboa 2012). In opinion polls, citizens expressed frustration with the expectations that had been generated during the election and discontent with governmental management (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, 66, 71, 76, 83). Support for Piñera shifted dramatically, as many citizens felt his government was unable to pursue a coherent policy.

Presence of Allies and Support Groups, and Cycles of Collective Action

2010 and 2011 were marked by the presence of citizen support for university student groups and several social movement allies. The student movement earned particular favor among Chileans after university student organizations helped to support 2010 earthquake victims.23 In addition, several episodes of contentious action occurred in 2010 and 2011 in which active groups put more pressure and demands on the state, representing possible allies for the student movement and signaling a new upsurge in the cycles of collective action in Chile. The beginning of 2011, in particular, was characterized by a substantial increase in the use of demonstrations as an instrument for expressing social demands (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, 67).

Contentious actions of environmental and indigenous social movements, mostly in southern regions of Chile, received much attention in 2010.

Several social groups demonstrated and marched in

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics the streets “using the streets as a privileged space to express their demands” and criticizing the political class, saying they did not represent their interests (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, 66). The Mapuche people “demand[ed] rights and land” and “masses of people oppos[ed] energy megaprojects in pristine wilderness areas” (McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011, 30). The “Patagonia Sin Represas” (Patagonia without Dams) movement fought against a project to build dams in the south in order to bring energy from Patagonia to the north of Chile.24 Some 30,000 people protested in Aysen, a city in southern Chile, in response to the Hidroaysen project.25

Collective action also emerged in the private sector. In 2010 Chile’s Ministry of Labor recognized the loss of 333,000 working days because of strikes in the private sector, which represented an increase of 192% compared to 2000 (Gaudichaud 2011, 4).

These contentious actors responded to political opportunity structures created by the beginning of Piñera’s presidency, and also created another political opportunity structure for the student movement. They set in motion a chain of confrontations with authorities and created conditions under which other groups, such as the student movement, could emerge by “test[ing] the waters and demonstrat[ing] the vulnerability of the regime”, and “lower[ing] the costs of collective action for those who follow” (Hipsher 1996, 156).

By the end of 2011, after the quieting down of the movement’s actions, the metropolitan region of Chile, where Santiago is located, had authorized 240 marches, compared to 134 in 2010. National figures estimate around 6,000 public demonstrations with around 2,000,000 participants had occurred throughout the year (Segovia and Gamboa 2012, 67).

The student movement had solidarity with many of these movements. The copper miners were integrated

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into students’ demands through calls to renationalize the copper mines, and the two groups marched alongside each other at several occasions (McSherry and Molina Mejía 2011). Students also participated in environmental marches in their cities.26 Political opportunity structures point to reasons why the student movement and other movements in Chile began to act contentiously in 2010 and 2011. However, they do not explain why the student movement in particular was able to successfully act collectively on the national level.

An analysis of student organizations that supported the movement better explains why the students, in particular, were the group to act.

Student Organizations and Networks As explained above, social movements do not always participate in visible political conflicts.

Public action is only one part of their experience. The Chilean student movement is not different. It did not begin in 2011, but entered a stage of student collective, contentious action after a period of cultural production and focus on changes at the individual university level. Student organizations with deep historical roots allowed the movement to stay connected and active during this phase, and, when the time came, strongly contributed to shaping the actions of the Chilean student movement in 2011.

Organization of the Chilean Student Movement

The Chilean Student Movement has a multitiered organizational structure. The organization of students normally begins at the department or major level within a specific university in order to articulate department specific demands. The students from each department elect leaders to represent their interests in the university student federation, in which

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the students discuss and compile university-wide demands. CONFECH, the national university student organization, is where the students organize at the national level.

The role of student federations and CONFECH in Chilean universities has allowed “the university student” to be an important actor in Chilean politics.27 This dynamic political role has existed for university and secondary students since before the Pinochet dictatorship. The student federations and CONFECH provide unifying structures of organization and knowledge that movement leaders can draw upon to mobilize action. In recent years an important shift has occurred in the focus of the student federations and CONFECH. Before 2006 students focused on more internal, university-specific issues or very narrow national issues such as student bus fares. However, beginning in 2006 the federations, and therefore CONFECH, began to make demands against the structure and political philosophy of the Chilean educational system.28 University Student Federations

At the university level, student federations allowed the movement to sustain itself outside of waves of collective action and contentious episodes.

As older students graduate from universities and younger students enter, student federations provide a structure in which new students are incorporated into the movement and knowledge is systematically passed down from generation to generation. This is important in terms of the preservation of a collective identity and the development of repertoires of contention, and has occurred in the oldest university federation since its founding in 1906 (Bonilla 1960, 314).

In a 1960 article Frank Bonilla describes the role of student federations as “an instrument of

propaganda, agitation, and pressure” and a “force for progress within the university; their dedication to democratic ideals, their readiness to protest injustice, and their resistance to political repression have helped keep Chile politically moderate” (334, 315).

The actions of 2011 can thus be seen as a return to the historic role of university students before the dictatorship as they, once again, demand progress and democratic ideals in their university system and protest the injustices of education and economic inequality in their country. As in 2011, the movement has always sprung to action when political and economic tensions build to a breaking point and political opportunity structures present themselves.

This is possible because of the continuity the student federations provide to the movement.

University student federations play a critical role in collective identity formation for younger students. Alcañiz and Scheier describe the importance of collective identity formation, noting that the “ideological dimension of collective identity formation is crucial in that ideology provides continuity to social movements” (2007, 162). The majority of students interviewed in the course of my research cited their first year studying in university as the first time they learned of the student movement. In one student’s first year, his university federation gave a presentation about the inequalities that exist in Chile. He was interested in the issues discussed and began to attend forums and other talks about issues organized by his university’s federation.29

Many students had similar experiences, learning about the issues of the student movement at student centers, in assemblies, and speaking with older students.30 Many also cited the known tendency of university students acting collectively and massively.31 One student described how she did not participate in

The Chilean Student Movement in 2011 political culture before going to university, but was a leader of her high school class. She said that listening to other students at her university helped to “open her eyes” to the issues facing Chile today. In 2010 she was elected to a leadership position in her department.

In 2011 she was elected president of the student federation of a major Chilean university.32

The presence of university federations also influenced the collective identity formation of students who had previously participated in the student movement, such as those who participated in the Penguin Revolution as secondary students.

One student described how participating in his department’s assembly and university’s federation helped him expand how he thought about the issues he had faced as a secondary student, and learn to connect his experiences to more universal problems, including the student movement as a whole and the struggles of Chilean citizens. Learning from the experiences of other students and adapting his previous experiences to new knowledge was critical, he said.33

The sharing that occurs between older and younger students through the structure of university federations is important to consider because “on the whole, shared prior knowledge, connections among key individuals, and on-the-spot direction guide the flow of collective action” (McAdams, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001, 49). Students learn how to be activists and how to act collectively from students before them and from their peers. The collective activist identities that students form by way of their university’s student federation, in turn, directly guide their collective actions.

The institutional knowledge preserved in university student federations greatly influences students’ repertoires of contention. The student movement uses universal methods that have been used

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by the movement for years.34 Students rely on their memory of the history of their movement and other movements to inform their actions today.35 When asked why the student movement uses methods such as strikes, marches, and occupations to further their cause, many students respond that these are methods that come from the past.

By handing down knowledge and expertise through university student federations, the student movement is able to preserve their collective activist identities and grow. Each generation passes down lessons from “bring your ID card when you go to marches” to “never confront police groups in the middle of a march or you will never arrive at the planned end.”36 In addition to student federations at the university level, the Confederation of Chilean Students was vital to the national level of the 2011 actions.

The Confederation of Chilean Students (CONFECH)

CONFECH was founded during the Pinochet dictatorship as a tool to unite oppressed student federations.37 In 2011 CONFECH expanded substantially to include any democratically organized university.38 Now all student federations at democratically organized universities send elected representatives to CONFECH meetings. It is the only university student organization operating at the national level.

Without CONFECH the movement would not have been able to organize at the national level or present coherent, unified demands. The confederation is highly organized and allows individual student federations to act collectively to pursue their national goals. Federation leaders build consensus on movement messages and actions during CONFECH sessions. The organization is responsible for deciding

80 the movement’s unifying message for the year, as well as planning the dates of marches, protests, and other organized actions.39 Each march has its own theme, decided in these sessions. For example, “cobre para la educación” (copper for education) was designated the main message of a march in which students went to the streets alongside Chile’s copper workers.40

These decisions are not made easily, however.

CONFECH representatives have marked differences in their ideas, and the organization’s decision-making processes are characterized by internal disagreements as federation representatives and CONFECH leaders work to find and share a united message.41 Several past and current university federation leaders describe the diversity of opinions in the confederation; meetings generally last ten to twelve hours, and deciding the message of the movement is the most difficult for reaching consensus.42 In addition to providing a structure to the national movement, CONFECH provided a space in which student leaders could discuss ideas and create effective strategies for their message. In 2011 the movement’s message was “endeudamiento” (indebtedness), a theme to which not only students but also families and neighbors could relate.43 The students’ ability to organize nationally and bring together their most skilled leaders to articulate messages that resonate with the most Chilean citizens relied on the structure of CONFECH. University federations and CONFECH are embedded in university student society, and becoming increasingly important in Chilean politics. Their historical roots and their legitimacy among university students and the public have given them the ability to organize at the national level, and create change in the way Chileans think about education, inequality in their country, and their government’s history. They act

as “reservoir[s] of the movement’s memories, which facilitate its reproduction over time” (Guzman-Concha 2012, 409). The student movement relied on these organizations to act collectively in 2011, and they will characterize the student movement’s actions in the future.

Concluding Thoughts This paper has helped fill a gap in the literature on the Chilean student movement’s 2011 contentious actions by offering an explanation for why these actions began in 2011, twenty years after the end of the Pinochet dictatorship and Chile’s supposed transition back to democracy. I show that the 2011 actions responded to neoliberal values and unequal education structures in Chile, and were sparked by political opportunity structures that appeared as a result of the election of President Piñera. Chilean university students’ traditional relationship to the state allowed the students to make coherent demands on their government, but maintain enough distance to garner support as separate from the state and its values.

Furthermore, both university-level student federations and the national CONFECH allowed the movement to maintain its collective identity and develop its repertoire of action during years of inaction. As a result, the student movement was able to organize and act on a national level when given the opportunity in 2011.

These explanations suggest that the history of a movement is intrinsically linked to its future. The fact that university-level student federations were disbanded during the Pinochet dictatorship, but reestablished and brought together by the founding of CONFECH, indicates a certain flexibility and resilience of social movements with a strong base of collective identity and a strong cause from which

Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics a movement can be rebuilt. The historical roots of the movement also influenced the way the students responded to the governments’ ideologies and policies in 2011. In many ways, the 2011 student movement mobilized to make the same protests and demands against their government as they have throughout their history. They declared that the government’s neoliberal values did not reflect the Chilean people’s needs, and demanded democratization and equality in their education system. Furthermore, the fact that the movement began to act contentiously at the national level in 2011 indicates that even long-standing social movements, supported by organizations, require political opportunity structures to act.

These findings also shed light on our understanding of Latin American democratization processes and social movement patterns, especially in the years following dictatorships. Democratization processes rely on the actions of groups external to the government as well as internal responses, and these processes take time. The Chilean case is especially interesting because of the absence of citizen organizations, such as labor unions. The students had to take the lead to make demands about their education supported by broader, more general demands for the government.

Looking Forward Despite the fact that the students were unsuccessful in achieving real policy changes, the student movement’s 2011 actions have transformed the way Chilean citizens think about neoliberalism, their educational system, and their government since the time of Pinochet. It is hard to say what will come of these events in the next few years. By the end of 2011, university students had mixed opinions about the accomplishments and value of demonstrations. More

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than anything, the movement’s actions had gained popular relevance.

Although university students returned to class and demonstrations petered out at the end of 2011, they have not disappeared completely. Early in 2013 the students began to demonstrate once again in response to a new political opportunity structure provided by the process of requintilización, in which the Piñera regime began to reorganize the five economic groups used to categorize students and determine their eligibility for scholarships. This process changed the categories and left many students without scholarships or loans. As a result, students “have again raised their signs…[to] demand free quality education” using the same methods as they did in 2011: strikes, school occupations and marches.44 In addition, 2011 student leaders Camila Vallejo and Giorgio Jackson have entered the political world since graduating from university. In 2013 both Vallejo and Jackson ran for office in Santiago. It is interesting to consider that by moving from student leaders to politicians, they are following the footsteps of other politicians before them. Salvador Allende, for example, was a leader of the University of Chile student federation.

Further consideration of the movement’s demands and role in politics will be necessary in the future. Are organized university students more focused on fundamental problems with the educational system, or do their actions reflect the emergence of new roots of discontent in Chilean society? Are the events of 2011, and the student movement’s subsequent actions in 2013, indicators that the political system in Chile might be changing?

In 1960 Frank Bonilla made a sweeping statement about the power of students’ political efforts in Chile. He stated that we cannot make

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generalizations about university students’ influence on Chilean national policy because their voices are heard as often as they are silenced. According to Bonilla, university students tend to come to the “foreground in abnormal times, when the usual machinery of national decision-making is weakened or monopolized by a single group” (1960, 334). Bonilla also affirms the importance of students’ thoughts, voices, and actions to Chilean political developments (1960, 334). It is striking that over fifty years later, Bonilla’s portrayal still rings true.

Endnotes 1 Personal interviews. Students at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. June 2013.

2 Written interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

3 Some students say the student movement began in 1981, others say it began before the dictatorship.

Scholars describe the presence of the student movement in the 1950s and 60s.

7 Personal interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

8 Personal interviews. Students at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

9 Personal interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

10 The Chilean government separates students into five categories (quintiles) of economic resources to decide which students are eligible for scholarships each year.

The student movement demands full scholarships for the first three quintiles and scholarships and loans for the fourth and fifth quintiles, according to students’ and families’ needs.

11 National Student Cards are used to receive student discounts, for example, on public transportation.

12 Written interviews. Students at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

13 Personal interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. June 10, 2013.

4 Personal interview. 2011 student federation president. Santiago, Chile. October 19, 2013.

14 Personal interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. June 10, 2013.

5 On May 21st each year the president of Chile presents

15 Roberto Navarrete, “Chile’s Winter Awakening,” Red Pepper, September 2011, accessed December 6, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/m8okkqq.

to Congress the state of the administration and politics of the nation in the Cuenta Pública, a speech much like the State of the Union address in the United States.

Each year, university students hold demonstrations during the weeks approaching the speech in an attempt to influence the president’s stance on education. In 2011, students mobilized in much greater numbers than in previous years.

6 Personal interview. Student at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, current federation leader. Valparaíso, Chile. October 16, 2013.

16 Written interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

17 Personal interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. June 2013.

18 Personal interviews. Students at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

The Chilean Student Movement in 2011 19 Personal interview. Student at the University of Valparaíso, current leader of the student federation.

Valparaíso, Chile. October 16, 2013.

20 Written interviews. Students at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013. Personal interviews. Students at the University of Playa Ancha.

Valparaíso, Chile. 2013; Student at the University of Valparaíso, current leader of the student federation.

Valparaíso, Chile. October 16, 2013; Student at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, current leader of the student federation. Valparaíso, Chile. October 17, 2013; Students at the Catholic University of Santiago, current leaders of the student federation. Santiago, Chile. October 18, 2013; Students at the University of Chile, current leaders of the student federation.

Santiago, Chile. October 18, 2013; 2011 student leaders. Santiago, Chile. October 19, 2013.

21 Written interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

22 Written interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

23 Personal interview. 2011 student federation leader.

Santiago, Chile. October 19, 2013.

24 Personal interview. Student at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, current student federation leader. Valparaíso, Chile. October 17, 2013.

25 Personal interview. Student at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, current student federation leader. Valparaíso, Chile. October 17, 2013.

26 Personal interviews. Student at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, current federation leader.

Valparaíso, Chile. October 17, 2013; Students at the University of Chile, current federation leaders.

Santiago, Chile. October 18, 2013; 2011 student leaders. Santiago, Chile. October 19, 2013.

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27 Personal interview. 2011 student federation leader at the University of Chile currently writing his dissertation on the internal conflicts of the student movement. October 19, 2013.

28 Personal interview. 2011 student federation leader at the University of Chile currently writing his dissertation on the internal conflicts of the student movement. October 19, 2013.

29 Personal interview. Student at the Catholic University of Chile, current leader of the student federation. Santiago, Chile. October 18, 2013.

30 Personal interviews. Student at the University of Valparaíso, current leader of the student federation.

Valparaíso, Chile. October 16, 2013; Student at the Catholic University of Chile, current leader of the student federation. October 18, 2013.

31 Personal interview. Student at the University of Valparaíso, current leader of the student federation.

Valparaíso, Chile. October 16, 2013.

32 Personal interview. 2011 student federation president. Santiago, Chile. October 19, 2013.

33 Personal interview. Past student federation leader at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile.

October 21, 2013.

34 Personal interview. 2011 student federation leader at the University of Chile. Santiago, Chile. October 19, 2013.

35 Personal interview. Student at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, current federation leader.

Valparaíso, Chile. October 17, 2013.

36 Personal interview. Student at the University of Chile, current leader of the student federation. October 18, 2013.

84 37 Personal interview. 2001 student federation leader.

Santiago, Chile. October 19, 2013.

38 Personal interview. 2011 student federation president. Santiago, Chile. October 19, 2013.

39 Personal interviews. Student at the Catholic University of Valparaíso. October 17, 2013.; Student at the University of Chile, current leader of the student federation. October 18, 2013.; 2011 student federation leader. Santiago, Chile. October, 19 2013.; 2011 student federation president. Santiago, Chile. October 19, 2013.

40 Personal interview. Student at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, current federation leader.

Valparaíso, Chile. October 17, 2013.

41 Personal interview. Past student federation leader at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile.

October 21, 2013.

42 Personal interview. Student at the Catholic University of Chile, current leader of the student federation. Santiago, Chile. October 18, 2013.

43 Personal interview. Student at the University of Chile, current leader of the student federation.

Santiago, Chile. October 18, 2013.

44 Written interview. Student at the University of Playa Ancha. Valparaíso, Chile. 2013.

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