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Volume VIII
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Issue 1
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A student-run journal of:
Summer 2014
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From the Editor !
Dear Reader, The motto of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy reads, “Policy is Everywhere. Lead from Anywhere.” With the publication of our Summer Issue, our first of the 2014-2015 academic year, this motto aligns well with the work of our authors. Recent Batten alumna Elena Weissman paints a picture of a housing community in Charlottesville known as Vinegar Hill—from its demolition in the 1960s to today. Batten alumnus Alan Safferson provides an extensive 53-year legislative history of the attempts to reform U.S. foreign policy and sanctions in Cuba. Policy is indeed everywhere—and our recent Batten graduates have demonstrated just that with pieces from our backyard all the way to 90 miles south of Florida. Additionally, we continue to maintain a commitment to in-depth, data-driven analysis. In “Evaluating the Remittance Market,” current Batten student Olivia Rappe offers a demand-side perspective of money transferred abroad from Latino immigrants. What motivates these remittances? What concerns should the remitter consider when sending money back home? These questions and many others will be answered in the following pages. These policy problems will endure without strong leadership on the issues. Accordingly, we have included a thought-provoking piece on “Leadership in a Diverse World” by Batten Assistant Professor Sophie Trawalter and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill doctoral candidate Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi. This piece addresses positive engagement of interracial interactions that can be applied in social as well as in professional contexts. As readers of our past issues will remember, the VIRGINIA POLICY REVIEW accepted a new mission in 2012 to “publish work that will impact the wider policy debate.” As you will see in the following pages, our semiannual issues continue to reflect this mission. The VIRGINIA POLICY REVIEW also recently launched a new medium for analysis of current events in real time: THE THIRD RAIL. This online journal has been tremendously well received and we would like to thank those that have contributed to the debate on our site. As a final note, I would like to welcome our new Dean of the Batten School, Allan Stam, who comes to us from the University of Michigan. Dean Stam brings a lifetime of experience in the classroom and the battlefield to the Batten School and we are privileged to have his strong support at the VIRGINIA POLICY REVIEW. Of course, this means that we must say good-bye to our first and greatest supporter, Dean Harry Harding. Dean Harding never stopped pushing us to provide Thomas Jefferson’s idea of “useful knowledge” to the Batten Community and beyond. We are thankful for his leadership and vision from the very beginning of our organization. Policy problems and strident voices can be found in many places. However, policy change begins with a conversation. The VIRGINIA POLICY REVIEW believes that conversation starts here. I sincerely hope you enjoy the great work from our authors. All the best, Franklin Bontempo
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Staff Acknowledgements ! Editor-in-Chief:
Franklin Bontempo
Content Director:
Rebecca Beeson
Managing Director:
Malcolm McGregor
Executive Director:
Yuhuan Fu
Senior Editors:
Michael Bock Zachary Porter Elsa Schultze
Director of Events:
Christopher Palmer
Associate Editors: Anna Barber
Alex Gregorio
Matthew Comey
Topher Lancaster
Graham Egan
Emily McLean
Sama Ehtesham
Baylee Molloy
Senior Online Editor of The Third Rail:
Joseph Liss
Staff Writer for The Third Rail:
Grady Brown
! We welcome your thoughts. Please forward any comments, questions, or concerns to virginiapolicyreview@gmail.com or visit us online at www.virginiapolicyreview.com. We also invite you to visit our blog at thethirdrail.virginiapolicyreview.com and engage further in the policy debate.
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Table of Contents ! I. Evaluating the Remittance Market Olivia Rappe, MPP’15 Candidate at the University of Virginia
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II. Foreign Aid: A Prescription for Renewal Samir Salifou, MPP’16 Candidate at the University of Virginia
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III. The Regulation of Greenhouse Gases Under the Clean Air Act 26 John Eick, Director of the Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council IV. Leadership in a Diverse World: 32 Stress and Coping in Response to Interracial Contact Sophie Trawalter, Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi, Doctoral Candidate at the University of NC-Chapel Hill V. Aligning Rhetoric and Research: The Unbalanced Development of the Vinegar Hill Plan Elena Weissmann, MPP
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VI. Why America’s Fascination with “Grit” 49 Can’t Solve Our Educational Dilemmas Anindya Kundu, Doctoral Candidate at New York University Pedro Noguera, Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education Professor at New York University VII. Automated License Plate Readers in Virginia Natasha Reese-McLaughlin, MPP’14 at the University of Virginia
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VIII. US Relations with Cuba Alan Safferson, MPP’14 at the University of Virginia
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Evaluating the Remittance Market: Understanding Demand Side Constraints from the Perspective of Richmond Latino Immigrants Olivia Rappe Introduction Remittances are a big deal. Five hundred and fifty billion USD will cross international borders in the form of these smallscale, family-centric transfers according to the most recent World Bank Data; by 2016, that projection increases to $700 billion.1 Remittances are organic in nature, going straight into the hands of the neediest families. Seventyfive percent of the world’s remitting population hail from “developing” countries, and the money they send back is spent overwhelmingly on basic medical and living expenses. 2,3 Due to these characteristics, remittances have an enormous potential to reduce familial and community poverty in recipient nations.4 Moreover, remittances are relatively stable, generally withstanding the economic fluctuations that so often hamper foreign direct investment and official aid.5 For recipient nations, they are also quickly catching up to or surpassing the total income from other forms of external finance, sometimes representing as much as a third of the nation’s GDP.6 In other cases, remittances singlehandedly support balance of payment deficits in developing nations. In an extreme example, income in the form of remittances surpasses income from national IT exports in India.7 Despite their economic and developmental importance, the market for remittance services remains dominated by a few key players, keeping prices prohibitively high. These high prices are particularly consequential given the fairly inelastic demand for remittance transfer services,
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“Migrants from Developing Countries to Send Home $414 Billion in Earnings in 2013,” The World Bank News, October 2, 2013, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/10/02/Migrants-from-developingcountries-to-send-home-414-billion-in-earnings-in-2013. 2 Dilip Ratha et al., Migration and Remittance Flows: Recent Trends and Outlook, 2013-2016, Migration and Development Brief 21 (The World Bank, October 2, 2013), http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/3349341288990760745/MigrationandDevelopmentBrief21.pdf. 3 Marcela Ballara, “The Development Dimension of Migrant Remittances” (International Organization for Migration, June 2004), http://marcelaballara.cl/milenio/agenda.pdf. 4 Richard H. Adams Jr. and John Page, “Do International Migration and Remittances Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries?,” World Development 33, no. 10 (October 2005): 1645–69, doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.05.004. 5 “General Principles for International Remittance Services,” January 23, 2007, http://www.bis.org/press/p070123.htm. 6 Ibid. 7 “Migrants from Developing Countries to Send Home $414 Billion in Earnings in 2013.”
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! coupled with the small size and frequency of each transfer.8 The World Bank estimates that a five percent decrease in price could save senders a total of $16 billion each year.9 There are, of course, supply-side barriers that contribute to the under-developed market. The market for banks and money transfer operators (MTO’s) is heavily regulated by both recipient and host governments, not to mention international law.10 There are also more immediate entry barriers, since firms generally need to build physical plants in all of the countries in which they operate while mitigating the subsequent cultural and language barriers.11 That said, these barriers have not stopped entrepreneurial activity in the market. Banks, credit unions, non-bank transfer institutions—even cell phone companies—have begun strategic initiatives to tap into this profitable industry.12 Supply-side barriers are not the only constraints in the market, yet there is a palpable lack of scholarly research on demand-side constraints. In the United States, Latino immigrants comprise 53 percent of the total immigrant population and send an estimated $45 billion dollars back to their home countries each year. 13, 14 However, very few notable organizations currently survey Latino immigrants on their remitting behavior. The Mexican Migration Project (MMP) at Princeton and the “Encuesta Sobre Migración en la Frontera Norte de México” (EMIF), conducted by the Mexico-based Colegio de la Frontera Norte regularly survey migrants on their remittance behavior. Both organizations, however, survey only Mexican immigrants in selective populations that fail to capture the complexity of the broader immigrant population.15 In contrast,
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“Remittance Prices Worldwide: Making Markets More Transparent,” The World Bank Group, 2013, http://remittanceprices.worldbank.org/en. 9 Ibid. 10 Colin C. Richard, “Dodd-Frank, International Remittances, and Mobile Banking: The Federal Reserve’s Role in Enabling International Economic Development,” Northwestern University Law Review, March 2011. 11 Ole E. Andreassen, Remittance Service Providers in the United States: How Remittance Firms Operate and How They Perceive Their Business Environment, Financial Sector Discussion Series (World Bank, June 2006), http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAYMENTREMMITTANCE/Resources/BusinessmodelsFSEseries. pdf. 12 Colin C. Richard, “Dodd-Frank, International Remittances, and Mobile Banking: The Federal Reserve’s Role in Enabling International Economic Development”; George Samuels, Banking Unbanked Immigrants through Remittances (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 2003), https://www.bostonfed.org/commdev/c&b/2003/fall/unbanked.pdf; “General Principles for International Remittance Services”; Nick Hughes and Susie Lonie, “M-PESA: Mobile Money for the ‘Unbanked’ Turning Cellphones into 24-Hour Tellers in Kenya,” Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization 2, no. 1–2 (April 1, 2007): 63–81, doi:10.1162/itgg.2007.2.1-2.63; Ballara, “The Development Dimension of Migrant Remittances”; Ratha, Migration and Remittance Flows: Recent Trends and Outlook, 2013-2016. 13 Sousan Arafeh, “A Nation of Immigrants,” Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project, January 29, 2013, http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/01/29/a-nation-of-immigrants/. 14 René Maldonado and María Luisa Hayem, Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2012: Differing Behavior Across Subregions (Inter-American Development Bank, April 29, 2013), http://publications.iadb.org/handle/11319/5919. 15 Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Cynthia Bansak, and Susan Pozo, On the Remitting Patterns of Immigrants: Evidence from Mexican Survey Data, Payments in the Americas (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, October 7, 2004), https://www.frbatlanta.org/filelegacydocs/Bansak%20article-final.pdf.
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! the IMF and World Bank typically survey firms to understand the market, and while there is a host of survey data on Latino immigrant demographics, only a few studies have sought to link them with remittance behavior. 16, 17 No studies have yet undertaken to explain remitting behavior as a function of the remittance service provider (RSP) market; how do migrants make decisions amongst various service providers? How does this differ within demographic subgroups? Why is it that, despite growth in the number and type of firms operating in this sector, Western Union and MoneyGram continue to maintain the largest market share year after year?18 In order to help fill this scholarly void, I endeavored in the summer of 2013 to interview a small sample of Latino immigrants in the city of Richmond, Virginia and Washington D.C. I did not limit my analysis to immigrants of Mexican origin. However, I did limit the sample to immigrants from Latino nations, as they alone represent half of the nation’s immigrant population. The goal of this research was to determine which services are being used, why, and how the services could be improved from the perspective of its consumers. I further analyzed the data to see if there were statistically significant differences between demographic sub-groups, such as between men and women or between different age cohorts. Again, the overall intention was to get a “thick description” of how remitting migrants interact within the RSP market: how do they make choices regarding providers and what factors impact their decisions.19 The research was funded by a research grant from the Harrison Institute at the University of Virginia in the spring of that year. The results of the project are summarized below. Methodology and Data I collected the data exclusively through 32 one-on-one interviews with Latino Immigrants in Richmond, Virginia and Washington D.C. Originally, the intent was to limit the scope of the study to Richmond. There were several good reasons to do so: •
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Personal contacts in Richmond facilitated comprehensive sampling; a longtime Richmond resident myself, I was able to connect to the Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations and several other local Latino community organizations. Richmond, as a new destination for Latino immigrants, is representative of a broader migration trend. Migrants are now moving out of traditional enclaves and into areas with previously small immigrant populations. 20 Because of this relatively new immigrant presence, it is interesting to note the rising and diversifying market for RSP’s in this area.
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International Monetary Fund (IMF), Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook, 2002: Part 2 -- World and Regional Tables; Part 3 -- Methodologies, Compilation Practices, and Data Sources (International Monetary Fund, 1981). 17 Amuedo-Dorantes, Bansak, and Pozo, On the Remitting Patterns of Immigrants: Evidence from Mexican Survey Data; Fernando Lozano-Ascencio, “Remittance Behaviour among Latin American Immigrants in the United States,” vol. 95 (presented at the XXV Internation Union for the Scientific Study of Population Conference, Tours, France: Population Conference, 2005), 18–23. 18 Andreassen, Remittance Service Providers in the United States: How Remittance Firms Operate and How They Perceive Their Business Environment. 19 Herbert J. Rubin, Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data, Third Edition edition (Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2011). 20 Debra J. Schleef, Latinos in Dixie: Class and Assimilation in Richmond, Virginia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010); Victor Zuniga and Ruben Hernandez-Leon, New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States (Russell Sage Foundation, 2006); Douglas S. Massey, Jacob S.
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The Richmond Latino population is “small, but relatively diverse in terms of country of origin, economic opportunity, and other variables.”21
Two of the participants were Washington, D.C. residents. I decided to include both participants’ responses, since they did not represent outlier values in terms of amount sent, frequency, or reason for transfers. Their preferences were, however, unique, which contributed valuable information for the study. Still, due to a small sample size, we must consider the results with a certain degree of caution. I designed the interviews to last approximately thirty minutes, containing 25 to 30 questions. The questions were varied to collect both quantitative and qualitative data; the mix provided a holistic understanding of the ways the Richmond Latino population interacted within the RSP market.22 I took notes during every interview. When permitted, I supplemented my notes with voicerecordings. After each interview, notes and recordings when available were transcribed and archived. All participants were informed of the voluntary nature of the study; if they did not want to answer a question they could skip it without consequence. The goal of the interview setting was to facilitate open and honest communication. I correctly suspected that potential participants would be wary in speaking with an “outsider” about something as personal as financial habits. To mitigate this distrust, I sought to work through community leaders with longstanding relationships with potential participants. My hope was to build relationships with the participants in order to demonstrate the integrity and veracity of my intentions. However, some participants were still wary of my presence, and I only interacted with participants for the duration of the interview. My first and primary contact in Richmond was the Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations (VACALAO), an umbrella organization for Latino community groups. VACALAO referred me to a number of smaller organizations that directly connected me to participants. There were two primary programs from which I derived most of my initial interviews: a small, daily lunch program for women in a primarily Latino neighborhood, and a local Latino Farmers’ Market. Additionally, through VACALAO and the Farmers’ Market, I learned of a large event held at the end of July attracting large numbers of Latino Immigrants each year. The “Feria de Oportunidad” joined together consulates and other organizations to provide services and information for Richmond’s Latino population. The fair drew Latino immigrants of many different national, economic, and social backgrounds for a variety of different reasons. “La Feria” accordingly represented an enormous resource for my study. I acquired approximately half of my interviews from the event. I found that such Latino attendees were generally very willing to share their stories with me in the safety of this setting; many did not find the questions or topic out of place given the kinds of services provided in the fair.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rugh, and Karen A. Pren, “The Geography of Undocumented Mexican Migration,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 26, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 129–52. 21 Schleef, Latinos in Dixie. 22 Rubin, Qualitative Interviewing.
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! The remaining interviews came from personal contacts and relationships. Two of the interview participants came from the D.C. area. Many of their responses corroborated the responses of Richmond Latinos. However, the two participants varied significantly from other participants in that both were very well assimilated into American culture and were part of a high socioeconomic bracket. They were included in the sample not only despite these characteristics but because of these characteristics; the Latino Immigrant population is far from homogeneous. Including them in the analysis helped to diversify the study and provide interesting, if anecdotal, comparisons to bulk of the remaining data. Moreover, six participants had previously received at least one remittance payment before migrating to the United States and were able to tell me about their experiences on the other end of the remittance equation. The demographic makeup of the sample was important to my analysis. Few other studies and surveys have collected demographic data on the Latino population of Virginia. Cavalcanti and Schleef specifically studied the Latino population and demographic dynamics in Richmond; their work “Latinos and Dixie” provides invaluable comparative data on the Latino demographic composition in Richmond. The Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia also tallies and organizes census data on Latino immigrants, but their descriptions are general to Virginia as a whole. Both Cavalcanti & Schleef and the Cooper Center draw on 2000 and 2010 census data. I use their compilations to determine the degree to which my sample differs or mimics their population profiles; how representative is my sample, as illustrated in Figure 2, of the Virginia— let alone Richmond—Latino population? Can my results be extended to the larger metropolitan or state level? Despite the lack of diversity in interview location, participants were very diverse in their age, gender and background. As the following figure demonstrates, the age range for the sample spanned from 19 to 59 years of age. The interviews were coincidently split exactly in half between men and women, with six unique countries of origin. Figure 1. Age and gender composition of participants. Age of Participants By Gender Male
Female
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5
5
4
4
4
3
3
2
2
2
1
1
0
Frequency of Observations
6
6
20
40
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Age of Participant (yrs)
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! Figure 2. Composition of origin countries by participant. International Composition of the Study Countries of Origin Listed by Participants 3.1% 3.1% 6.3% 13%
16% 59%
Countries of Origin Colombia
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala
Mexico
Peru
Sample drawn from the Latino Immigrant Population living in Virginia 32 Participants Interviewed : June through August 2013
To examine this comparability, a series of statistical tests compared my sample to the profiles provided by the above reports. The results of these tests are summarized below: Table 1. Demographic comparisons of participants. Prior Studies Current Study Variable
Significance
Confidence
Age Comparisons drawn between Richmond's foreign-born population, 2000. Under 20 0.34 12,803 0.03 32 -0.30 20-39 0.44 0.63 0.18 Over 39 0.22 0.34 0.12
Proportion
N
Proportion
0.000 0.019 0.075
99% 95% --
Gender Comparisons drawn between Virginia's foreign-born population, 2010 Male 0.53 687,972 0.50 32 0.03 Female 0.47 0.50 -0.03
0.36 0.36
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Country of Origin Comparisons drawn between Richmond's foreign-born population, 2000. Mexico 0.307 23283 0.594 32 -0.287 Costa Rica 0.008 0.031 -0.023 Guatemala 0.042 0.156 -0.114 El Salvador 0.069 0.125 -0.056 Colombia 0.021 0.063 -0.042 Peru 0.008 0.031 -0.023
0.001 0.228 0.043 0.173 0.170 0.228
99% -95% ----
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! Region of Origin Comparisons drawn between Richmond's foreign-born population, 2000. Mexico 0.307 23283 0.594 -0.287 Central America 0.155 0.313 -0.158 South America 0.055 0.094 -0.039
0.001 0.032 0.229
99% 95% --
Consequently, my sample roughly corresponds to the demographic composition in terms of gender and regional origin; over half of the characteristics were not statistically different from external estimates to the 95 percent level. Several factors, however, appear overstated in my sample. The sample’s proportion of Mexican immigrants appears to overstate their presence in the larger population. There are many potential reasons for this disparity. The Lunch program discussed previously was run in a predominantly Mexican-origin neighborhood. This trend biases the study towards Mexican immigrants. The Farmers’ Market was also held near this immigrant enclave, which may have further biased the results. However, it is worth mentioning that census data used for these figures surveyed only documented individuals up until 2010. 23 Many alternative studies suggest that the rates of Mexican illegal immigration are much higher than from other Latino nations.24 My study made no effort to discern the legal status of the individual. The data subsequently may not be biased towards Mexican Latinos simply because it theoretically must incorporate a few, if not many, undocumented participants, while the census data did not. My sample also did not capture all of the various immigrant origins. The international composition of the study’s participants also overrepresented the Richmond city’s Guatemalan population according to 2000 census data. I suspect this was due to the snowball design where participants were found through personal contacts. The study’s results cannot be extended to represent all the behavior of the foreign-born population from different national origins in Latin America. Finally, the sample appears to overstate the proportion of the population within the age cohort of 20 to 39 years old, understate individuals younger than 20 years of age, and mildly overstate individuals older than 39 years. The remitting population, however, bulges within the 20-39 year range, as this is a prime savings period for the consumption cycle, which may mean my sample is representative in this regard.25
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Susan A. Clapp, Hispanics in Virginia, Demographic & Workforce Group (Weldon Cooper Center, University of Virginia, May 2011), http://www.coopercenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/NumbersCount_HispanicsInVirginia_05_2011. pdf. 24 Jeffrey S. Passel, The Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S. (Pew Hispanic Center, March 7, 2006), http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/61.pdf; Jeffrey S. Passel, Randolph Capps, and Michael E. Fix, Undocumented Immigrants: Facts and Figures (Urban Institute, January 12, 2004), http://www.urban.org/health_policy/url.cfm?ID=1000587. 25 Donald F. Terry and Steven R. Wilson, Beyond Small Change: Making Migrant Remittances Count (Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 2005); Amuedo-Dorantes, Bansak, and Pozo, On
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! Results A Profile of Richmond Latino Remitters: Participants in the study varied in the quantity and frequency of remittance payments. Some sent money home at the end of every week, while others only for special occasions. The vast and statistically significant majority, however, sent between $200-$300, with 95 percent confidence, as demonstrated in Figure 2. This suggests that while there may be differences in the number of payments made per year, both frequent and occasional remitters send roughly the same amount in each transfer. Figure 3. Average number and amount of payments made by participants.
Average Sum Per Payments Made Sum of Average Payment USD
(per year) 1000 950 900 850 800 750 700 650 600 550 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0
0
2
4
6
8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50
Number of Payments Made per Year
Quantities Sent Per Payment Per Year Avg Sum per Participants Median Values Mean : $275.70/13 times per yr
Mean Values
Median : $200/5 times per yr
One hundred percent of the participants sent money to a family member, with over a third specifically mentioning their mother as the primary recipient. Only one participant mentioned
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the Remitting Patterns of Immigrants: Evidence from Mexican Survey Data; Lozano-Ascencio, “Remittance Behaviour among Latin American Immigrants in the United States.�
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! recipients outside the family—creditors—although they were mentioned in addition to his family recipients. Ninety-seven percent stated general living expenses as the purpose of the transfer. “Gastos básicos” was the most frequently reply in all interviews. What comprises this expense category? Fifty percent mentioned food specifically, followed by medical expenses and clothing. One common critique of remittances attributes these transfers to unnecessary luxury goods—rather than investment—however, with food and medical costs topping the list, I am hard pressed to find such expenses excessive. Again, further study should expand upon this point. As for the preferred provider, Vigo (recently purchased by Western Union) took the majority of the participants’ transactions. Participants frequently claimed it was the cheapest service available, particularly when considering the speed. Within minutes, Vigo can wire up to $10,000. In contrast, it takes banks days to perform the same operation, with fees generally beginning at $15.26 Despite Vigo representing the perceived “cheapest” alternative, over a third of the participants said they were unhappy with the service because of the cost. At $10.00 a transfer, Vigo charges a steep tax for such small transfers. Because the fee is a flat rate that increases not as a percentage system but as a tiered schedule, there was no flexibility if the remitter needed to send a small transfer. This disadvantaged certain subgroups more than others; women, for example, proved more ready to switch for even slightly less expensive services. Many complained that often times they only had $40-$50 to send; a $10 fee for this kind of transfer actually discouraged frequency. Sources of Information A competitive market has reliable and timely information available to consumers. Of course, no information is complete or perfect; however, the pervasiveness of information barriers enormously impacts the ability of consumers to follow price signals. According to their responses, participants in this study largely depended on two sources of information to learn about their RSP options: 47 percent of participants relied on word of mouth, another 47 percent relied on the “default options” provided at their local grocers. Grocery stores are common access points for RSP agents, and often only offer a couple of service options.27 Latino groceries and convenient stores are a comfortable, non threatening place for remitters in which individuals can also purchase auxiliary products, such as phone cards.28 Several participants revealed that they switched services when their grocer stopped providing their originally preferred RSP, demonstrating the power of grocery stores to determine which services are being used. More traditional forms of advertisement hardly factored into participants’ RSP decision-making. In fact, one participant explicitly expressed concern over a service he had seen advertised on TV. Many others mimicked this distrust and were concerned about the security of lower-priced alternatives (discussed further in subsequent paragraphs). In contrast, the services that were
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“Remittance Prices Worldwide: Making Markets More Transparent.” Raul Hernandez-Coss, The U.S.-Mexico Remittance Corridor: Lessons on Shifting from Informal to Formal Transfer Systems (Washington, D.C: World Bank Publications, 2005). 28 Ibid. 27
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! “trustworthy” were RSP’s that had been recommended personally or were effectively sponsored by local groceries. Costs An important component of the interview was related to costs. The underlying assumption is that costs are prohibitively high, deterring remitters from sending more money more frequently. Given that a third of the participants explicitly complained about cost, initial assumptions appeared correct. How much were participants paying on average? Participants reported paying, on median, $10 per payment. However, the average cost was slightly lower: $9.48. One participant effectively paid $0 per payment—through a clever international debit card linked to an American account—and two others paid a $5 fee each time. On the whole, participant responses generally mirrored World Bank estimates on equivalent data.29 Therefore, we can assume that these costs are roughly equivalent to the costs paid by the population at large. The final information acquired tried to discover the situations that would cause participants to change their primary RSP. First, participants were asked if they would change services given a reduction in cost—from $4.00 to $1.00 reductions in increments of $1.00. Then participants were asked if they would change RSP’s if the new service were more convenient for them personally. Participants often asked for clarification on “how” the service would be more convenient. For consistency, I responded with the same example every time: would they switch services if they could send money via their mobile phone? 30 Finally, the participants were presented with situations in which switching services would not be Pareto-efficient: either the recipient or the sender would benefit at a cost to the other. Participants overwhelmingly responded that they would change given a reduction in cost. Eightyfive percent would change given a $4.00 decrease. This is not surprising since that would represent a 58 percent decrease in the average cost. The results are roughly the same for a $3.00 decrease at 84 percent. The corresponding percentages for a $2.00 and $1.00 decrease fall to 67 and 59 percent, respectively; nonetheless, it is imperative to note that the majority of participants would switch services for as little as a $1.00 decrease. As for convenience, 59 percent of participants would change if the new service were more convenient for them. This is surprising because 89 percent of participants responded yes when asked if they thought the services were currently easy and convenient to use. Because “convenience” was not defined in the question, there are numerous interpretations that could justify this discrepancy, but, because of the subjective nature of the questions, we are resigned to
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“Remittance Prices Worldwide; Country Corridors,” The World Bank Group, 2013, http://remittanceprices.worldbank.org/en/countrycorridors. 30 Hughes and Lonie, “M-PESA”; Jan Chipchase and Panthea Lee, “Mobile Money: Afghanistan,” Innovations 6, no. 2 (2011): 13–33; Richard, “Dodd-Frank, International Remittances, and Mobile Banking: The Federal Reserve’s Role in Enabling International Economic Development”; “Mobile Money Tracker,” Mobile World Live, n.d., http://www.mobileworldlive.com/mobile-money-tracker; “General Principles for International Remittance Services.”
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! interpreting this result in the following manner: while innovation would still be appreciated in the market, participants were largely satisfied with the level of convenience and accessibility of the existing service providers. Additionally, women were 31 percent more likely to say they would change for only a $1.00 decrease. This difference did prove statistically significant; women—particularly Mexican women—claimed to be more price-sensitive than men. At this point, it is worth noting that women sent statistically equivalent amounts per remittance, as did men in the study, but at less frequent intervals. Does the above complaint suggest that lower prices would encourage women to send less but at more frequent intervals? This would certainly confirm the idea that women are more reliable when it comes to regular remittances, but that they generally earn less. What people say, however, is often different than what they do, and it is beyond the limits of this study to predict a change in behavior. In terms of similarities, women favored roughly the same RSP firms as men. There were a few differences across these subcategories, but they were small and statistically insignificant. That said, although also not statistically significant to the 95 percent level, it is worth mentioning that when asked to justify their preference for a given RSP, men more frequently mentioned the speed of the transfer and the security of the service as their main justifications. In contrast, no women reported security as justification for their current RSP preference. An interesting fact, however, is that 100 percent of both men and women reported that the transfers were easy and convenient for their families to receive. Accordingly, RSP firms are doing a good job reaching recipients, at least according to Latino remitters in Richmond, Virginia. Moreover, both men and women have similar relationships with their recipients—mothers, siblings, children, etc.—and mentioned similar purposes for their payments. As for regional or age comparisons, there was very little evidence to suggest behavior differs substantively across these subgroups. Central Americans tended to be less precise about the purpose and recipient of the remittance payment; South Americans tended to be slightly more assimilated, yet regardless of origins, participants sent statistically equivalent amounts from the same providers. The same can be said for age cohorts. Interestingly, no matter the age of the participant, their justifications for service preferences and information sources were statistically equivalent. Of course, with a sample size this small, it is impossible to be definitive about any of regional or age comparisons. Discussion The Latino community is far from a monolithic demographic regarding their remittance sending habits. Not all immigrants remit, and there is evidence to suggest that second and third generations remit much less.31 Of those remitting immigrants or first generation individuals, there is significant variation in the quantity, frequency, method, complaints, and perspectives on the remitting process.
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Amuedo-Dorantes, Bansak, and Pozo, On the Remitting Patterns of Immigrants: Evidence from Mexican Survey Data.
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! Payment Schedules While imperfect and small, my study provides unique insights that are worth mention. For example, the Richmond Latino population appears clustered in terms of the frequency of remittances. Most remitters send around five payments per year, while another smaller cluster sending payments at the end of each and every week. Yet another cluster may emerge with more data: those remitting twice a month. What does this clustering mean? I would hazard that such patterns correspond to specific “schedules” for payments; be it weekly or every paycheck, payments are regular, consistent, and scheduled. This confirms the fact that remittances are more stable than other forms of financial inflows for recipient nations while also providing a useful detail for firms entering the market. These payments are not spontaneous; the infamous lines at the Latino grocer on paydays are enough evidence in that regard. RSP’s would do well to innovate in such a way that reflects the cycles and schedules of remitters. Payment Size As my study confirms, payments are generally small. While some participants sent around $1,000 per payment, this is far from the norm. The average payment for this study ranged from $200 to $300. Still, given their regularity and frequency, these small sums add up over the year. The 32 participants in this study claimed to send an aggregate sum of nearly $84,000 per year. There are thousands of Latino immigrants in Richmond alone, and this is a relatively small population compared to other large immigrant centers. Billions of dollars are therefore crossing boarders in the form of these small, regularly scheduled payments. Cost and Fee Structures Each transfer bears a cost. For the average Richmond remitter, the cost per year of remitting is nearly $50. Factoring in the non-typical remitter, these costs rise to $122.60 per year. While this cost amounts to only 5 percent of the total sum sent, it is important to their destination; in countries like Guatemala, the per capita GDP in 2012 barely exceeded $3,000.32 From this perspective, the real purchasing power of an extra $5-10 per month is quite high. Over a third of participants reported that the costs were too high. That third also happened to send smaller sums per year. This outcome implies that some remitters are burdened more by the transfer costs than others. This group may either send less because of the costs, or are just more impacted in other consumptive habits by the flat rate system charged. The most common fee schedule for RSP providers is staggered according to amount. Most MTOtype firms charge $10 per transfer up to $1,000. Above that threshold, the price increases, and so on and so on. While better than a pure flat rate system, the threshold schedule nonetheless ignores much of the variation inherent in remittance payments. Few participants actually sent $1,000 per year, much less expand beyond $500. A possible alternative to such a system might be a fee as a percentage of payment schedule, in which the larger the transfer, the larger the cost, but the proportion remains constant. Doing so would burden the small-senders less, but represent an unnecessary tax on large value remitters.
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United Nations Statistics Division, “World Statistics Pocketbook,” UN Data Country Profile, Guatemala, July 22, 2013.
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! Another alternative would simply be to adjust the fee schedule to more accurately reflect the typical remittance variation. Thresholds would be for lower amounts making fees more sensitive. Still, there is little incentive for MTO’s to do so, since competition is scarce and profits are high.33 As mentioned earlier, women sent less on average than men. As an informative anecdote, I offer part of a conversation I recorded between the five women of the Lunch Program: As I explained the interview process to these women, many immediately offered their comments on the problems with the services. The women did not have jobs, a function of their childcare duties, lack of English proficiency, and inability to afford childcare. In consequence, the women expressed frustration with the fees they encountered when sending remittances. The money they sent was often gifted to them by their husbands, rarely more than $100. As one woman quipped when asked about her satisfaction with the service, “Sometimes we only have $40, $50 to send. But they charge $10 per transfer! This is way too much for me!” So what of these small senders? I suspect that the dominant fee structure is in place because firms expect a relatively inelastic demand. These women, despite the high costs, still continue to send money to their family members at home. Still, a 20 to 25 percent fee would not be tolerated in the face of competition. Indeed, the $10 fee increasingly represents a lower and lower proportion of the transfer, suggesting the size of the transfer does not impact the costs facing the firm.34 Some new firms in the market have adopted a fee as a percentage format. Why do they gain no ground for the consumers that are disproportionately affected by this flat rate? The question, then, is what are the existing barriers to competition from a demand-side perspective? Information Barriers and Trust From the data here, the largest barrier is information. Remitters generally distrust traditional methods of advertisement. Instead, the overwhelming majority of participants rely on their local grocer and word of mouth in their decision-making processes. Although there is not enough evidence to examine why participants did not trust advertisements, I would suppose that the close familial and local networks experienced by immigrants fosters a sort of interpersonal dependence not penetrable through traditional means of advertising. An alternate interpretation might be that entering firms have not been successful in finding Latino grocery partners or in convincing their attendants of the benefits of the new service.
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“Over the Sea and Far Away,” The Economist, May 17, 2012, http://www.economist.com/node/21554740. 34 This high fee does not represent the competitive equilibrium. Ria, for example, in service to Ecuador, charges $5.00 to send $200 in cash. See: “Remittance Prices Worldwide; Country Corridors.” This suggests there is significant room for firms to cut costs, or at least that there exists some oligarchic market power for the top firms. This noncompetitive market is particularly apparent in this study, since Western Union recently purchased Vigo, the top RSP. Additionally, MTO’s are increasingly coming under fire for manipulative practices that raise the cost of the remittance transfer above the advertised amount. The Federal Consumer Affairs Procurator Office based in Mexico is investigating the ways large MTO’s manage exchange rate conversions—another cost not tallied in the official price. For more see: Dale Allred, “Bank-Based International Money Transfer System,” June 20, 2002.
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! In either scenario, however, it is clear that innovation does not precipitate dramatic changes in the market composition. For example, efforts to encourage immigrants to turn to banks as their primary remittance service provider struggle to overcome significant distrust, particularly on the part of illegal immigrants. Although it is now legal to open a bank account with a “matricula consular” card rather than a social security number, many Latino immigrants fear documenting their finances officially lest the favorable banking circumstances change. On the other hand, the growing popularity of “mobile wallets” is making money transfers easier within the United States. As it stands, there is significant regulation against this form of mobile transfer across international borders due to anti-terrorism legislation.35 Still, it seems somewhat plausible that such movement will be possible in the future, although there are significant hurdles yet to be overcome. If international mobile transfers do gain ground, how will the Latino Immigrants of Richmond react? There is no doubt that Latino immigrants are avid smartphone users.36 Will they and their families trust this form of transfer? Will receiving countries’ cell phone agents prove trustworthy? Will agents in the US prove the same? While the innovation in the market is exciting, this study reveals that remittances are a serious commitment involving thousands of dollars per year for the remitter. Other concerns, such as security and long-term viability, may trump cost in terms of RSP preference. Heterogeneity in the Population Another thing is clear from this study: while there are broad trends that can be established, significant differences exist between demographic subgroups. An important distinction exists for Mexican women in particular, who, according to the study’s participants, are more likely to claim that they would switch to a new service if the price were cheaper by $2. In contrast, few Mexican men or other Central and South American individuals claimed they would switch, as demonstrated in Figure 4. While it is unclear whether this would actually occur in practice, at least in theory there is evidence to suggest Mexican women would benefit disproportionately from price decreases.
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Richard, “Dodd-Frank, International Remittances, and Mobile Banking: The Federal Reserve’s Role in Enabling International Economic Development.” 36 Mark Hugo Lopez, Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, and Eileen Patten, “Closing the Digital Divide: Latinos and Technology Adoption,” Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project, March 7, 2013, http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/03/07/closing-the-digital-divide-latinos-and technology-adoption/.
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! Figure 4. Reasons why participants would change lending services.
0
20%
40%
60%
80%
Percent of Yes Respondents
100%
Percent of Respondents Who Would Change Services If...
$4.00
$3.00 $2.00 The new service were cheaper by... Total Mexican Women Non-Mexican Women
$1.00
Mexican Men Non-Mexican Men
Conclusion As in all markets, the remittance service provider market is complex. There are significant, yet malleable barriers facing the entrepreneur, both from the demand and supply side. On the supply side, building comprehensive and legal transfer networks represent the first major hurdles. Finding access points for recipients and senders represents another set of challenges. But how, then, to integrate into the market? Innovation, it seems, hasn’t been enough. As this study demonstrates, prices are not the only important factor in decision-making. Rather, regularity and trust-worthiness feature heavily in individuals’ preferences. Immigrants are aware of the dangers of sending money abroad with just anyone. Fearful and conscious of several exploitative instances with individual agents, remitters in this study vastly preferred to work with people they knew, be it following a friend of family member’s guidelines or with the Latino grocer. There is also a convenience factor that compliments this preference for familiarity; as one participant noted, remittances are not single transaction affairs. The recipient must be told of the transfer, the approximate time and place of arrival, and of the “pin” number required to release the funds. This means remitters must often purchase calling cards, pre-paid cell phones, and other associated products. So, not only are such grocery stores convenient, friendly, Spanish-speaking, and located in the centers of immigrant hubs, they are also a one-stop shop for all of remitters’ needs. If any entrepreneur in the remittance service market wants to obtain even a shot at market share, they will certainly need to consider the existing grocery networks in their “access point” decisions.
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! A second notable consideration that emerged from the study is the general frustration with the staggered fee schedule for remittances. Firms offering price decreases might tailor their approaches to capture the “small-senders,” actually represented quite well in this study by those who were unsatisfied with the cost. These remitters are much more likely to switch services, particularly if the fee were charged in a percent of payment system. Another group of “malcontents” in the market might be well categorized as Mexican women. I cannot easily explain this differential; why are Mexican women more likely to switch services than other Latino women? Conversely, why are Mexican men significantly less likely to make the switch given a price decrease? More research is necessary to build a solid theory or discredit this distinction as the result of chance in this particular sample. Yet another area relatively unanalyzed here is the issue of immigrant banking. Clearly, connecting to the financial mainstream offers immigrants a larger portfolio of financial service options. Banks can do a better job of tapping this market, even if they do not physically transfer the funds themselves. This may mean bankers step out of the bank doors and go to the local Latino grocery. It may mean they meet with community leaders and community organizations themselves to speak to the “unbanked” populations about the benefits and security of keeping their money within bank vaults, while assuaging fears of persecution or deportation. Banks are necessarily slow moving institutions held to more rigorous legislative regulation than perhaps the newcomers to the remittance market, be they new traditionally franchised MTO’s or mobile money firms. How quickly banks will be able to establish themselves in an already trusted and familiar market remains to be seen. In either case, progress would likely be slow, therefore representing a long-term strategy of holistic financial integration—not cost reduction and market diversification. Even still, it is worth the effort of increasing awareness about bank services amongst immigrant populations, not only so they can better protect their savings, but so those savings can go towards national investment and economic growth. ! Olivia Rappe is a second-year MPP student at the Batten School. Olivia is especially interested in development economics and political economy. Her work on the remittance market was part of her undergraduate thesis in Global Development Studies at the University of Virginia. !
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US Foreign Aid: A Prescription for Renewal Samir Salifou According to The New York Times, the U.S. government is changing the manner in which it allocates foreign aid.1 The government’s change in policy is aimed directly at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In the past, USAID was known for “donor-led” development aid, which created the perception that the agency served as a cash machine for U.S. foreign policy to support authoritarian regimes during the Cold War. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the 1990s were a decade where the United States honed a strategy to readjust its overall aid policy by gearing it toward development, and not just geopolitical spheres of influence. As a result of this effort, the U.S. government created various aid programs such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which are supposed to be more flexible and “recipient-driven” aid programs.2 In response to this shift in policy, USAID has also attempted to refocus its aid to a “recipient-led” model by using more indigenous groups (in recipient countries) for the implementation of projects. This is a step in the right direction, but must be a part of a larger institutional redesign of American foreign aid policy if the program is to survive. Undoubtedly, U.S. foreign aid has had a large impact on international development for good and bad. This impact is exemplified by the fact that some developing countries have budgets that rely on foreign assistance to support vital programs. This paper discusses why the United States engages in foreign aid, and whether it is in its economic interest to invest in other countries. The paper will then look at how foreign aid tends to change the incentive structure for leaders of recipient countries by making them less responsive to internal political and policy imperatives. Finally, this paper will introduce the different dimensions of current U.S. aid policy by analyzing how assistance should be restructured for long-term development with proper funding. U.S. foreign aid has been controversial since the Marshall Plan was implemented in 1947 by the Truman administration. Some politicians have called it a poor investment that burns through money without any substantially tangible outcomes. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has said that “the vast majority of the American public doesn’t like foreign aid, myself included … I’m thinking really about the here and now of actually trying to change what’s going on, what it does in the future, I don’t know.”3 Why then would the U.S. government engage in foreign assistance if such a policy were not in its direct economic or political interests? The answer to this question is very simple: Foreign aid is in the immediate national interests of the United States insofar as it helps to create stable democracies and opens up new economic frontiers for U.S. businesses, if it is done correctly.
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Ron Nixon, "In Switch, Development Agency Welcomes Business and Technology to Poverty Fight," The New York Times (New York, NY), April 7, 2014, accessed April 7, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/08. 2 Carol Lancaster, "How Smart Are Aid Donors?" in Smart Aid for African Development, ed. Joeseph Richard and Alexandra Gillies (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishing, Inc., 2009), 41. 3 Meredith Shiner, "Rand Paul Tries Killing Foreign Aid Softly," Roll Call, June 7, 2012, accessed July 30, 2014, http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_147/Rand-Paul-Tries-Killing-Foreign-Aid-Softly-215121-1.html.
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! There is historical precedence for successful aid intervention. Looking at the role that a sustained and cohesive aid policy played in the economic boom that occurred in Asia with countries like South Korea and China provides some evidence. These two countries benefited from U.S. assistance through a partnership with USAID (among other factors) which subsequently liberalized economic relations, leading to China’s emergence as the world’s second largest economy – America’s largest trading partner – and South Korea’s emergence as a liberal democracy and a high-income country.4 This aid model worked in these countries and has been replicated in other countries, such as Kenya, to varying degrees of success. In sum, foreign aid falls in line with hegemonic stability theory, which stipulates that global economic development and stability is supported by the existence of a global hegemon who is willing to bear the costs of economic liberalization for long-term economic returns. U.S. foreign aid, which has sometimes been framed as being purely humanitarian, is in fact in the economic long-term interests of the United States. Unfortunately, long-term economic interests do not necessarily coincide with the short- term political interests of politicians. USAID started under President Kennedy in 1961 as an independent agency with over 18,000 employees, and has since been ostensibly integrated under the tutelage of the State Department, with reductions in staffing down to 2,200 employees.5 There is no doubt that when USAID began, its aid policy was squarely focused on the geopolitics of the Cold War. However in the 1990s there was a deliberate effort to shift to a genuinely need-based theory of development in the hopes of liberalizing new trade markets. Regrettably, the bulk of USAID’s staff was outsourced to contractors who are the immediate American benefactors of foreign aid. These companies have strong lobbying firms that represent their interests in the U.S. Congress and promulgate an inefficient system that favors them. Politicians are able to point to the jobs these firms are creating to justify the appropriations given to USAID. Yet, the distributional consequences for recipient countries tend to foster networks of patronage and corruption because the focus is no longer on recipient-driven development aid. On the contrary, since the requirements for recipient nations to be granted these funds is rooted in Washington-based conditionality, recipient nations have an incentive to ignore the democratic process which would otherwise bestow legitimacy on their regimes and constrain their policies to the desires of the indigenous body politic. This new State Department-led and contractor-run model threatens to turn development aid back to the ineffective and politically detrimental Cold War practices that propped up dictators for the sake of countering communist ideology. An example of this paradox during the Cold War was Zaire (later renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo) whose former dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, savagely oppressed his people and had complete disregard for civil society because his incentive to remain in power was aligned with an accountability to donor nations, and not his citizenry. Zaire exemplified geopolitics controlling aid policy, which in turn allowed the United States to ignore everything besides Mobutu’s anti-Marxist agenda.
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World Bank, "Country Income Groups (World Bank Classification)," ChartsBin, accessed April 11, 2014, http://chartsbin.com/view/2438. 5 Nixon, "Switch.”
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! After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the conditions were ripe for the United States to appropriately refocus aid to serve a developmental function and no longer focus on geopolitics. As a mark of this change in policy, laws such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) were passed to “provide beneficiary countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with the most liberal access to the U.S. market available to any country or region with which [the United States] does not have a Free Trade Agreement.”6 By contrast, the State Department-controlled, donorled, conditionality-based model of development has turned the clock back to a period of less inclusive institutions in recipient countries because these leaders are, once again, losing the incentive to be accountable to their civil societies through elections. USAID’s current intervention in Afghanistan is a prime example of how this new model of development is taking returns unnecessarily to the days of the Cold War. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has reported that USAID has spent over $1.6 billion in Afghanistan as of August 2013.7 One of the projects that the money was spent on is the Tarakhil Power Plant in Kabul, which cost $300 million to build even though after its completion Kabul still imports 100% of its energy from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.8 The funding of a project such as the Tarakhil Power Plant illustrates that a donor-led model doesn’t account for the realities that the recipients face in their countries (in this case the socio-economic conditions in Kabul didn’t permit the government to efficiently deliver electrical services and receive payment). SIGAR has highlighted that the normal process by which U.S. aid is provided to foreign countries (a process called ADS 220)9 was circumvented in the case of Afghanistan because the decision to provide aid was made at the highest level of government and was thus unnecessary.10 American popular support continues to shift away from foreign aid as results fall short of economic liberalization goals, even though foreign aid itself is not the culprit; it is the manner in which the aid is being administered. Fortunately, U.S. aid policy is currently in a transition period. In 2004, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) was created to be a recipient-driven aid program, so long as the recipients met certain democratic and good-governance criteria (e.g. free press, free and fair elections).11 As a part of these changes, USAID has since reduced its payments to contractors and decided to use more recipient labor in its aid programs. In fact, contracts awarded to big U.S. contractors fell slightly from $9.6 billion to $9.2 billion under the current administrator of USAID, while
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U.S. Trade Commission, "AGOA Frequently Asked Questions," U.S. Trade Administration, accessed July 30, 2014. 7 Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Direct Assistance: USAID Has Taken Positive Actions to Assess Afghan Ministries' Ability to Manage Donor Funds, but Concerns Remain, Report No. SIGAR 14-32 Audit (Washington, DC: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, 2014), 2, accessed July 30, 2014, http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/Audits/SIGAR-14-32-AR.pdf. 8 Vice, "Afghan Money Pit," HBO, March 14, 2014. 9 For further reference see: U.S. Agency for International Development, ADS Chapter 220 Use and Strengthening of Reliable Partner Government Systems for Implementation of Direct Assistance, Publication no. 220_072814 (Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development, 2014), 4, accessed July 30, 2014, http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1868/220.pdf. 10 Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Direct Assistance. 11 For further reference see: Millennium Challenge Corporation, "Fact Sheet: The Fiscal Year 2014 Selection Process for MCA Eligible Countries," last modified 2013, http://www.mcc.gov/pages/docs/doc/factsheet-the-fiscal-year-2014-selection-process-for-mca-eligiblecountries.
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! payments to local groups (in recipient countries) almost doubled from $919 million in 2010 to $1.6 billion in 2012. 12 Hopefully, with this structural change, the institutional design of international foreign aid will be recalibrated toward positive outcomes in the recipient states and not just immediate gains in donor states like the United States. Given that domestic political factors constrain U.S. aid and the appropriation of aid money, a farther-reaching institutional change is needed in the way the United States allocates this money. The current structure, where USAID is being ostensibly incorporated into the State Department, unfortunately politicizes aid to foreign states by basing it on geopolitics and not on development and democratization (as discussed above). Georgetown University professor Carol Lancaster has suggested taking the different aid organizations such as USAID, MCC, and PEPFAR, consolidating them under one cabinet-level development agency, which would coordinate the manner in which aid is given, in conjunction with the countries that are receiving assistance.13 Framing foreign aid as an integrated part of the war on terror, for example, may provide policy makers with the necessary political cover from budget cuts. In the end, these measures should help achieve the intended goal of this aid by making it more efficient for a clear long-term return on American investment. Accomplishing these proposals will require political capital that is severely lacking in Washington at this time. Because of this sad state of affairs, the policy window for action is currently closed. Yet, there will be a precipice where the inefficient nature of our aid structure – because of its incapacity to produce the economic liberalization goals that benefit both parties – will either kill the programs or require an institutional redesign. Ultimately, foreign aid is in the United States’ long-term economic and political interests. The manner in which America decides to structure this aid is what will determine its viability and effectiveness. If the institutional design of the American aid apparatus is less politicized and more cohesively centralized, then there is good reason to believe it should achieve its long-term goals. If not, the failure of past endeavors such as Zaire and its authoritarian regime will be replicated. The importance of international development for America is not just humanitarian, but it is also economic, political, and moral. ! Samir Salifou is a Master of Public Policy candidate at the Batten School. His undergraduate degree is in Foreign Affairs with a specialization in African Studies. His graduate policy interests focus on social justice, international development, and foreign affairs. He recently worked as an account executive in the telecommunications industry in Washington, D.C.
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Nixon, "Switch.” Lancaster, "How Smart Are Aid Donors?"
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The Regulation of Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act John Eick Foundations of Environmental Policymaking When President Richard Nixon and Congress came together to establish the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, they did so with a vision for how national environmental policy should be developed. This vision was built upon the principle of cooperative federalism, meaning the EPA would work closely in conjunction with states to balance economic growth with environmental protection.1 The preamble of the federal Clean Air Act clearly reflects the cooperative federalism framework, when it states that “air pollution prevention…and air pollution control at its source is the primary responsibility of States and local governments” and that “federal financial assistance and leadership is essential for the development of cooperative Federal, State, regional and local programs to prevent and control air pollution.”2 The Clean Water Act and other pieces of foundational environmental legislation also include similar language. Such an arrangement outlined in this legislation makes logical sense. States have unique circumstances and conditions that policymakers need to consider when implementing any sort of policy measure, especially those pertaining to environmental protection. At the same time, however, the federal government has the ability to provide the technical assistance and financial resources necessary for implementing meaningful environmental regulations. Typically, the EPA will establish environmental guidelines and states will in turn develop strategies known as State Implementation Plans (SIPs) to comply with these measures. The EPA then approves or rejects their plans. This arrangement between the federal government and the states has proven to be reasonably successful. Since 1970, the gross domestic product and energy consumption of the U.S. has increased by 219 percent and 47 percent, respectively. During this same time period, aggregate national emissions of six common air pollutants collectively referred to as “criteria pollutants”— particulate matter, ozone, lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide—have dropped by an average of 72 percent.3 Technological advancements and other factors have played significant roles in pollution reduction, but the environmental improvements resulting from close partnership between the EPA and states have also been substantial.
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William Yeatman, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Assault on State Sovereignty,” (Arlington, VA: American Legislative Exchange Council, 2013), 1. 2 42 U.S. Code § 7401 – Congressional findings and declaration of purpose. 3 “Clean Air Act: Progress Cleaning the Air and Improving People’s Health,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, accessed September 3, 2014, http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/progress.html.
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! Regulating Greenhouse Gases The Clean Air Act statutorily requires the EPA to set emission standards for “any air pollutant” derived from motor vehicles that may “cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”4 In 2003, the EPA determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were not considered to be “air pollutants” in the same vein as, for example, the criteria pollutants. Thus greenhouse gases could not be legally regulated under this provision of the Clean Air Act. Soon thereafter, twelve states, a number of cities, and several environmentalist groups brought a lawsuit against the EPA citing the effects that greenhouse gases have on global climate change. The lawsuit was pursued to force the agency to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants. In Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases “fit well within the [Clean Air] Act’s capacious definition of ‘air pollution.’” Additionally, the Supreme Court found the EPA’s rationale for not regulating greenhouse gases to be inadequate and required them to revisit their earlier 2003 determination.5 On this remand, the EPA found that six greenhouse gases —carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride—may “reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare.”6 In making this rule, the Supreme Court set a major precedent. Although this particular case dealt with emissions from mobile sources such as automobile and truck tailpipes, the regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources such as fossil fuel-fired power plants appeared almost inevitable. In June 2013, President Barack Obama released his Climate Action Plan; a series of executive actions designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and prepare for the effects of climate change. Perhaps most significantly, as a part of this plan, President Obama issued a presidential memorandum directing the EPA to develop greenhouse gas emission standards (often referred to by the EPA as its “Clean Power Plan”) for both new and existing fossil fuel-fired power plants under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. Responsible for approximately one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions, power plants are the largest stationary source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. In compliance with this directive, in September 2013 the EPA released proposed New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for power plants built in the future. Proposed emission standards were also required for existing plants by June 1, 2014 with finalized standards coming by June 1, 2015. Challenges Presented by New Source Performance Standards The proposed NSPS rules would limit new coal and natural gas-fired power plants to 1,100 and 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted per megawatt-hour, respectively. When burned to generate electricity, natural gas emits roughly half of the amount of carbon dioxide that coal does, thus gas-fired power plants can fairly easily meet the EPA’s proposed emission limit by
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42 U.S. Code § 7408 – Air quality criteria and control techniques. Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007). 6 “Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, accessed September 3, 2014, http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/petitions/decision.html. 5
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! employing the latest combined cycle technology. In order for a coal-fired power plant to be compliant with these new standards, however, they would be required to install carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. CCS technology is an energy-intensive process that allows for waste carbon dioxide to be captured, transported, and then deposited long-term into large underground geological formations. This trapping process would prevent the release of large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. On the surface, CCS may sound extremely promising but there are significant problems associated with mandating the use of this technology today: the largest being that CCS has never been proven viable on a large commercial scale. President Obama’s Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage even concedes this point. The group determined in their August 2010 report that CCS technologies “are not ready for widespread implementation primarily because they have not been demonstrated at the scale necessary to establish confidence for power plant application.”7 There are also significant cost concerns associated with using CCS today. In testimony before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Julio Freeman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal at the Department of Energy, said that CCS technologies could increase the wholesale price of electricity by between 70 and 80 percent.8 Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, is currently constructing a coal-fired power plant in Kemper County, Miss., that would capture and store roughly 65 percent of carbon dioxide emissions generated by the plant. When completed, the Kemper Project will be the first commercial-scale plant of its kind in the U.S. Originally expected to cost $2.8 billion, the construction costs of the Kemper Project are now approaching $5.2 billion; hundreds of millions of federal dollars have been invested in the project, and Mississippi Power expects electricity rates for consumers in the area to increase by 33 percent as a result. The Sierra Club expects even higher rate increases.9 Affordable and reliable electricity are of vital importance to economic prosperity and well-being. The relationship between low energy prices and economic growth is well established. 10 Furthermore, energy is an input for virtually everything produced, consumed, transported, and enjoyed in society. It is also a critical component of extracting natural resources for manufacturing products, disposing of and recycling those products, and every process that occurs
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“Report of the Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage: August 2010,” U.S. Department of Energy, accessed September 3, 2014, 34, http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/04/f0/CCSTaskForceReport2010_0.pdf. 8 Anthony Adragna, “CO2 Capture Could Raise Wholesale Energy Price 80 Percent,” Bloomberg, accessed February 12, 2014, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-12/co2-capture-could-raise-wholesaleenergy-price-80-percent.html. 9 “Southern Company faces risks on Mississippi Power’s Kemper County plant,” The Mississippi Press, December 28, 2012, http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-pressbusiness/2012/12/southern_company_faces_risks_o.html. 10 Dr. John Garen, Dr. Christopher Jepsen, and James Saunoris, “The Relationship between Electricity Prices and Electricity Demand, Economic Growth, and Employment,” University of Kentucky Center for Business and Economic Research, accessed September 3, 2014, http://energy.ky.gov/Programs/Data%20Analysis%20%20Electricity%20Model/Gatton%20CBER%20 Final%20Report%2010302011.pdf.
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! in between. Higher electricity prices, such as those associated with CCS, will inevitably increase the cost of manufacturing goods and providing services, and these additional costs will necessarily be passed along to consumers. Because of these mounting costs associated with the CCS requirement and other existing regulations, the prospect of building meaningful numbers of new coal-fired power plants in the short term to account for both increased demand—as a result of population growth—and decreased supply—as a result of the planned retirement of existing plants—looks remote. Over 60 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity (or about 20 percent of the total installed coal-fired capacity in the U.S.) is slated for retirement within the next five years. Such a sudden decrease in installed capacity without adequate amounts of replacement capacity could present extremely serious reliability challenges in the near future.11 These challenges may best be illustrated by the polar vortex that defined winter 2013-2014. American Electric Power, one of the largest investor owned utilities in the U.S. with significant service areas in the Midwest, was running approximately 89 percent of their coal-fired generation capacity that is slated for retirement in 2015. Without these units available in the future, it may become impossible to meet peak demand coming as a result of future extreme weather events.12 What is most alarming about these NSPS regulations, however, is that they severely limit the ability of states to craft air quality programs tailored to their local circumstances and conditions. Roughly 40 percent of all electricity in the U.S. is generated from the burning of coal, but this rate is more than double in several states, especially those with significant coal reserves. Coal has always been an attractive fuel source for many states because its prices have historically been cheaper and less volatile than those of other fuel sources. The proposed NSPS rules put these particular states at a significant disadvantage over their counterparts and flies in the face of the principles of cooperative federalism enshrined in the Clean Air Act. Regulating Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Existing Sources On June 2, 2014, the EPA proposed a rule for existing fossil fuel-fired power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. After soliciting input from state policymakers and the general public, the EPA is expected to finalize these guidelines in June 2015. In developing the proposal, the EPA sought to reduce nation-wide carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants by 30 percent, relative to 2005 levels. In order to reach this benchmark, the EPA has assigned each of the 49 states that have fossil fuel-fired power plants with a different carbon dioxide emission limit that must be implemented by 2020 and achieved by 2030.13
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“An Increase in Coal-Fired Plant Retirements Means Fewer Coal Mine Jobs,” Institute for Energy Research, accessed February 24, 2014, http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2014/02/24/an-increasein-coal-fired-plant-retirements-means-fewer-coal-mine-jobs/. 12 Matthew L. Wald, “Coal to the Rescue, but Maybe Not Next Winter,” The New York Times, accessed March 10, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/business/energy-environment/coal-to-the-rescuethis-time.html?_r=0. 13 The District of Columbia and Vermont do not have any fossil fuel-fired power plants, effectively exempting each entity from the proposed rulemaking.
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! The emission limits vary by state and are based upon each state’s existing electric generating mix and an EPA assessment of each state’s ability to implement four emission reduction measures referred to as “building blocks.” These so-called building blocks include the following measures: (1) improving the thermal efficiency of existing coal-fired units by six percent, (2) increasing the capacity factor of existing natural gas combined cycle plants to 70 percent, (3) installing new renewable generation capacity, and (4) increasing end-use (or consumer) energy efficiency that would reduce electricity use by up to 12 percent.14 North Dakota, for example, would be required to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by what appears to be a fairly modest 11 percent, while Washington would be responsible for a 72 percent reduction.15 Unfortunately, these building blocks used by the EPA are likely unachievable. Significant efficiency improvements have already been made by owners and operators of coal-fired power plants over the years, making the additional six percent thermal efficiency improvements largely unattainable. Increasing the capacity factor of existing natural gas combined cycle plants to 70 percent will also prove to be difficult.16 In 2012, a year with record low natural gas prices, the average nationwide capacity factor for natural gas combined cycle units was 51 percent, the highest it has ever been.17 Furthermore, greater demand placed on natural gas for electricity generation will likely mean higher natural gas prices – the EPA itself estimates that gas prices will increase by up to 12.5 percent by 2020 as a direct result of the proposed rule.18 Lastly, enduse efficiency improvements would also be difficult to attain since lighting, the most costeffective efficiency improvement possible, is already occurring through the existing U.S. Lighting Energy Policy. First adopted in 2007 and still being implemented today, these lighting standards require new lights to use 25 percent less energy while producing the same amount of light. For consumers, the most noticeable component of these standards is the gradual phase-out of incandescent light bulb in favor of the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL). It is also worth noting that even though the proposed rule was designed to address climate change, there will be no appreciable effects on global temperatures if the rule is finalized. In neither the 654-page proposed rule nor the 376-page regulatory impact analysis, does the EPA
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“National Framework for States: Setting State Goals to Cut Carbon Pollution,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-05/documents/20140602fs-settinggoals.pdf. 15 “Table 1: Building Block Reduction by State,” Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, http://www.c2es.org/federal/executive/epa/carbon-pollution-standards-map#table-1. 16 The capacity factor of a power plant is the ratio of electricity generated over a period of time to the total energy that could have been generated at 100 percent operation during the same period of time. Generally speaking, it is a measure of the productivity of the generation technology. 17 “Capacity Factors for Utility Scale Generators Primarily Using Fossil Fuels, January 2008-April 2014,” Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_6_07_a. 18 “Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Proposed Carbon Pollution Guidelines for Existing Power Plants and Emission Standards for Modified and Reconstructed Power Plants,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed June 2014, 3-38, http://www.epa.gov/ttn/ecas/regdata/RIAs/111dproposalRIAfinal0602.pdf.
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! explain the climate benefits of the rule.19 Using the EPA’s own Model for Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change (MAGICC) publicly available online, the Cato Institute determined that the future global temperature rise that would be averted by the proposed rule being implemented in its entirety would be roughly 0.018 degrees Celsius by 2100, a number so small that it is largely undetectable.20 Despite this undetectable benefit, the EPA estimates that the total cost of the rule will be between $7.3 billion and $8.8 billion by 2030.21 As the EPA begins to finalize the greenhouse gas emissions rule for existing sources in 2015, the agency should consider a few key objectives. First, the EPA should follow the legal requirements of the Clean Air Act and not usurp the primacy of states when dealing with environmental protection. States should be afforded wide latitude in how they implement guidelines, taking into account each state’s unique circumstances. Second, the final rule should not hinder the integrity of the electricity generating fleet that powers the nation. Significant amounts of installed generating capacity are slated to come offline in the near future due to plant retirements in compliance with other environmental regulations. Therefore, the EPA must ensure that their rule does not lead to situations where electricity supply cannot meet peak demand, especially during significant weather events when power is especially needed. Lastly, the EPA should give states and electricity producers credit for a number of measures already taken that have resulted in real carbon dioxide emissions reductions, such as energy efficiency improvements, fuel switching, and the increased use of natural gas and renewables in their generating portfolios. Energy markets are complex, even without first-of-a-kind emission standards for both new and existing fossil fuel-fired power plants. However, if implemented properly, the EPA can work with the states under the cooperative federalist model to develop standards that lead to meaningful, cost-effective emission reductions without forcing more power plants into retirement or causing an unnecessary curtailment of operations. The future of the U.S. economy depends on it. ! John Eick is the Director of the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council. In this capacity, he works with state legislators and industry leaders to develop fiscally responsible, pro-growth energy and environment policy solutions for state and local governments.
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“EPA’s Power Plant Rule: All Economic Costs; No Climate Benefits,” Institute for Energy Research, accessed September 3, 2014, http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/epas-power-plant-ruleeconomic-costs-climate-benefits. 20 Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger and Patrick J. Michaels, “0.02°C Temperature Rise Averted: The Vital Numbers Missing from the EPA’s ‘By the Numbers Fact Sheet,’” The Cato Institute, accessed July 11, 2014, http://www.cato.org/blog/002degc-temperature-rise-averted-vital-number-missing-epas-numbersfact-sheet. 21 “Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Proposed Carbon Pollution Guidelines for Existing Power Plants and Emission Standards for Modified and Reconstructed Power Plants,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed June 2014, ES-7, http://www.epa.gov/ttn/ecas/regdata/RIAs/111dproposalRIAfinal0602.pdf.
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Leadership in a Diverse World: Stress and Coping in Response to Interracial Contact Sophie Trawalter Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi The United States is becoming increasingly racially diverse, making interracial interactions virtually inevitable. This diversity has the potential to be tremendously rewarding. Exposure to racial diversity can lead to many positive outcomes, including more positive racial attitudes, better leadership development and more complex thinking about the social world.1 In the words of former President Bill Clinton, diversity can be a “Godsend” for those who can “live together, learn together, work together.”2 Indeed, organizations that have promoted and leveraged diversity have gained a huge competitive advantage. Organizations like IBM have not only succeeded in achieving diversity in their workforce, they have used it to reach out to new markets, develop more creative solutions, and redefine the work they do so that employees—all employees—feel invested in the company.3 IBM’s success story is not the norm, however. Many organizations struggle to achieve diversity, especially at the top of the organizational hierarchy, and they fail to leverage differences.4 For decades, researchers have argued that the reason efforts to increase diversity fail is that people are secretly (or not-so-secretly) prejudiced. Research has shown that most people favor members of their own social groups.5 They trust and like ingroup members more than outgroup members, and prefer to give rewards to those in the ingroup.6 In the context of race relations,
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Alexander W. Astin, What Matters In College?: Four Critical Years Revisited (San Francisco: JosseyBass, 1993); Natalie J. Shook, Russell H. Fazio, and J. Richard Eiser, "Attitude Generalization: Similarity, Valence, And Extremity," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43, no. 4 (2007): 641-647; Anthony Lising Antonio, Mitchell J. Chang, Kenji Hakuta, David A. Kenny, Shana Levin, and Jeffrey F. Milem. "Effects of Racial Diversity on Complex Thinking in College Students." Psychological Science 15, no. 8 (2004): 507-510; Anthony Lising Antonio, "The Role Of Interracial Interaction In The Development Of Leadership Skills And Cultural Knowledge And Understanding," Research in Higher Education 42, no. 5 (2001): 593-617; Samuel R. Sommers, "On Racial Diversity and Group Decision Making: Identifying Multiple Effects Of Racial Composition On Jury Deliberations," Journal Of Personality and Social Psychology 90, no. 4 (2006): 597; Samuel R. Sommers, Lindsey S. Warp, and Corrine C. Mahoney, "Cognitive Effects Of Racial Diversity: White Individuals’ Information Processing In Heterogeneous Groups," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44, no. 4 (2008): 1129-1136. 2 William Clinton, “Second Inaugural Address of the President of the United States,” Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, accessed September 3, 2014, http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres65.html. 3 David A. Thomas, “Diversity as a Strategy,” Harvard Business Review, last modified September 2004, http://hbr.org/2004/09/diversity-as-strategy/ar/1. 4 Fay Hansen, "Diversity’s Business Case Doesn’t Add Up," Workforce 82, no. 4 (2003): 28-32. 5 Marilynn B. Brewer, "The Psychology Of Prejudice: Ingroup Love and Outgroup Hate?" Journal Of Social Issues 55, no. 3 (1999): 429-444. 6 Chester A. Insko, John Schopler, and Constantine Sedikides, "Personal Control, Entitativity, and Evolution,” in Intergroup Cognition And Intergroup Behavior, ed. Chester A. Insko, John Schopler, and C. Sedikides (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1998), 75-108; Henri Tajfel, Michael G. Billig, Robert P. Bundy, and
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! research has shown that white Americans prefer white people. They prefer to live in predominantly white neighborhoods.7 They have an easier time associating good things with white people and bad things with black people.8 They are also more willing to help and share resources with white people than with people of minority groups. 9 Clearly, prejudice can undermine diversity efforts. This explanation is incomplete, however. A main reason diversity efforts today fail is that diversity is challenging. Interracial interactions are stressful. Research has shown that many individuals exhibit physiological and behavioral signs of distress during interracial interactions. They exhibit increases in cortisol, a “stress hormone.”10 They also exhibit nonverbal behaviors associated with social anxiety (e.g., fidgeting, blinking excessively, averting eye gaze) that undermine the quality of social interactions.11 To improve interracial interactions and leverage diversity, leaders will need to learn how to cope with interracial contact in positive and productive ways. Stress and coping in response to interracial interactions To understand why interracial interactions are stressful and how people might cope with that stress, it is useful to understand stress and coping more generally. Figure 1 provides a schematic of the stress and coping process applied to the interracial context. When faced with a potential stressor, individuals make primary and secondary appraisals. 12 During primary appraisal,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Claude Flament, "Social Categorization And Intergroup Behavior," European Journal Of Social Psychology 1, no. 2 (1971): 149-178. 7
Robert D. Putnam, "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century: The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture," Scandinavian Political Studies 30, no. 2 (2007): 137-174. 8 Brian A. Nosek, Frederick L. Smyth, Jeffrey J. Hansen, Thierry Devos, Nicole M. Lindner, Kate A. Ranganath, Colin Tucker Smith et al., "Pervasiveness and Correlates Of Implicit Attitudes and Stereotypes," European Review of Social Psychology 18, no. 1 (2007): 36-88. 9 Samuel L. Gaertner and John F. Dovidio, "The Subtlety of White Racism, Arousal, and Helping Behavior," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35, no. 10 (1977): 691; Richard H. McAdams, "Cooperation and Conflict: The Economics of Group Status Production and Race Discrimination," Harvard Law Review (1995): 1003-1084. 10 Wendy Berry Mendes, Heather M. Gray, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, Brenda Major, and Elissa S. Epel, "Why Egalitarianism Might Be Good for Your Health: Physiological Thriving During Stressful Intergroup Encounters," Psychological Science 18, no. 11 (2007): 991-998; Trawalter, Sophie, Emma K. Adam, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, and Jennifer A. Richeson, "Concerns About Appearing Prejudiced Get Under The Skin: Stress Responses to Interracial Contact in the Moment and Across Time," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48, no. 3 (2012): 682-693. 11 John F. Dovidio, Kerry Kawakami, Craig Johnson, Brenda Johnson, and Adaiah Howard. "On the Nature of Prejudice: Automatic and Controlled Processes." Journal Of Experimental Social Psychology 33, No. 5 (1997): 510-540; John F. Dovidio, Kerry Kawakami, and Samuel L. Gaertner, "Implicit and Explicit Prejudice and Interracial Interaction," Journal Of Personality and Social Psychology 82, no. 1 (2002): 62; Fazio, Russell H., Joni R. Jackson, Bridget C. Dunton, and Carol J. Williams, "Variability in Automatic Activation as an Unobtrusive Measure of Racial Attitudes: A Bona Fide Pipeline?" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, no. 6 (1995): 1013; Sophie Trawalter and Jennifer A. Richeson, "Let’s Talk About Race, Baby! When Whites’ and Blacks’ Interracial Contact Experiences Diverge," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44, no. 4 (2008): 1214-1217; Trawalter, “Under the Skin.” 12 Richard S. Lazarus, Psychological Stress and the Coping Process. New York: McGraw Hill, 1966.
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! individuals appraise the demands of a potential stressor. In the context of interracial interactions, they appraise how much effort the interaction is likely to require. Research has shown that most people appraise interracial interactions as being quite demanding.13 Whites are often concerned about appearing prejudiced and ethnic minorities are often concerned about being the target of prejudice — managing these sets of concerns requires effort.14 Individuals often self-regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in an effort to manage their concerns. STRESS AND COPING FRAMEWORK FOR INTERRACIAL CONTACT PRIMARY APPRAISAL: DEMANDS? For many people, interracial contact is demanding
THREAT For many, demands > resources
FREEZE “Don’t say or do anything!”
AVOID “Get out of this as quickly as possible!”
SECONDARY APPRAISAL: RESOURCES? For many people, resources are low
CHALLENGE For some, demands < resources
ANTAGONIZE “Be unpleasant and they will go away!”
ENGAGE “Win them over and this will be better!”
Figure 1. A stress and coping framework for understanding behavior during interracial interactions. Once people have assessed the demands of a potential stressor, they go on to secondary appraisal. During this phase, individuals appraise resources available to cope with the stressor. Resources can be material, physical, or psychosocial, and facilitate one’s ability to change the situation, mitigate negative outcomes, and/or generate positive outcomes. In the context of interracial contact, one of the most useful resources is a social script. Social scripts are guidelines for what to say and do during a social situation. People have social scripts for any number of situations, such as attending class (e.g., sit down, take notes, ask thoughtful questions), eating at restaurants (e.g., wait to be seated, look at the menu, order from the waiter), and even interacting with those of one’s own racial group (e.g., say hello, ask where s/he is from, talk about favorite restaurants in Charlottesville). Because many people have little interracial contact experience, they lack
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Jim Blascovich, Wendy Berry Mendes, Sarah B. Hunter, Brian Lickel, and Neneh Kowai-Bell, "Perceiver Threat in Social Interactions with Stigmatized Others," Journal Of Personality and Social Psychology 80, no. 2 (2001): 253. 14 J. Nicole Shelton, Jennifer A. Richeson, and Jacquie D. Vorauer. "Threatened Identities and Interethnic Interactions." European Review of Social Psychology 17, no. 1 (2006): 321-358; Jennifer A. Richeson and J. Nicole Shelton, "When Prejudice Does Not Pay Effects of Interracial Contact on Executive Function," Psychological Science 14, no. 3 (2003): 287-290; Jennifer A. Richeson, Sophie Trawalter, and J. Nicole Shelton, "African Americans' Implicit Racial Attitudes and the Depletion Of Executive Function After Interracial Interactions," Social Cognition 23, no. 4 (2005): 336-352.
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! social scripts for interracial interactions. This lack of experience is especially true of white Americans.15 Consider how stressful it is for many white Americans to use racial labels (“should I say black or African American?”). 16 This lack of knowhow can make interracial contact stressful for both whites and minorities. Interracial interactions are stressful then because the demands of interracial interactions often exceed individuals’ resources to meet those demands. As a result, individuals often feel threatened or distressed and must deploy coping strategies to reduce their stress. These strategies can take countless forms, but broadly speaking, there are four basic coping behaviors: attacking the source of threat (to remove the threat), avoiding/escaping the threat, freezing until the threat disappears, or creating and maintaining social bonds to manage the threat. Attacking and avoiding/escaping the threat is often referred to as “fight or flight,” while creating social bonds to cope with a threat has also been referred to as “tend and befriend.”17 In the context of interactions, we label these responses antagonizing, avoiding, freezing, and positively engaging, respectively.18 Antagonizing One response to threat is attacking the source of the threat, moving it from one’s immediate environment. In the context of interracial interactions, individuals who attack antagonize their interaction partner. They might sneer and make snide remarks (e.g., offensive jokes) or behave in aggressive and dominant ways. The goal of antagonizing is to invalidate the threat, making the interaction and one’s interaction partner insignificant. Although this coping response can reduce the threat people feel during interracial interactions, it fails to promote positive outcomes. Avoiding Another common response to threat is avoiding it. In the context of interracial contact, individuals who avoid will avert their eye gaze, lean back and away from their interaction partner, and try to end the interaction as quickly as possible. Because avoiding requires disengagement, it too fails to promote positive outcomes. Moreover, when whites are avoidant, they run the risk of appearing prejudiced, and when minorities are avoidant, they run the risk of appearing incompetent.
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Sophie Trawalter and Jennifer A. Richeson, "Regulatory Focus and Executive Function After Interracial Interactions," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 42, no. 3 (2006): 406-412. 16 Michael I. Norton, Samuel R. Sommers, Evan P. Apfelbaum, Natassia Pura, and Dan Ariely, “Color Blindness and Interracial Interaction: Playing the Political Correctness Game,” Psychological Science, 17, 949-953. 17 Walter Bradford Cannon, The Wisdom of the Body (New York: Norton, 1932). Shelley E.Taylor, Laura Cousino Klein, Brian P. Lewis, Tara L. Gruenewald, Regan AR Gurung, and John A. Updegraff. "Biobehavioral Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-And-Befriend, Not Fight-Or-Flight." Psychological Review 107, no. 3 (2000): 411-429. 18 Sophie Trawalter, Jennifer A. Richeson, and J. Nicole Shelton, "Predicting Behavior During Interracial Interactions: A Stress and Coping Approach," Personality and Social Psychology Review, no. 13 (2009), 243-268.
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! Freezing A third common response to threat is freezing. In the context of interracial contact, individuals who freeze will close their body posture and brace themselves for what is to come. They will say or do as little as possible. After all, if they say or do nothing, they cannot say or do something wrong. As with the avoiding response, freezing requires disengagement from the interaction and fails to promote positive outcomes. At best, it prevents negative outcomes. Positively Engaging A final coping response is positively engaging. In the context of interracial contact, people who positively engage make eye contact, lean forward, nod and smile, and affirm their interaction partners’ comments. As the interaction unfolds, they are able to reduce stress by making the interaction more comfortable and easier to navigate. Positively engaging in the face of threat can be difficult. Indeed, the easiest way to positively engage is to reappraise the interaction as a challenge instead of a threat. Leaders can accomplish this shift from threat to challenge by reducing the demands of the interaction and/or increasing resources to meet the demands. Once resources exceed the demands of the interaction, individuals will feel positively challenged and they will positively engage. (See Figure 1.) How to Positively Engage in Interracial Interactions The first way to promote positive engagement is to reduce the demands of interracial interactions. One way to achieve this goal is to improve racial attitudes. Indeed, research has shown that people who have more interracial contact and more positive racial attitudes find interracial interactions less demanding.19 Changing racial attitudes is notoriously difficult, however. It likely requires positive interracial contact among equal-status peers who share a common goal and must work together to achieve that goal.20 It may also require specific strategies to counter stereotypes (e.g., exposure to counter-stereotypical media and role models) and strategies to promote a prodiversity mindset (e.g., acknowledging/celebrating rather than ignoring differences).21 Luckily, there are other ways to reduce the demands of interracial contact. The surest way is to get people to focus on their interaction partner, the interaction, or the task at hand, rather than themselves. For example, people can think of the interaction as an opportunity to learn about a topic or another person as opposed to an opportunity to perform well or not.22 They can also adopt a promotion focus (“do the right thing”) rather than a prevention focus (“don’t do the wrong thing”) to reduce the demands of interracial contact.23 Agreeing on a group goal and/or
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Blascovich et al., “Perceiver Threat.” Mendes et al., “Egalitarianism.” 20 Gordon Willard Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1954). 21 Nilanjana Dasgupta and Anthony G. Greenwald, "On the Malleability of Automatic Attitudes: Combating Automatic Prejudice with Images of Admired and Disliked Individuals," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81, no. 5 (2001): 800-814; Jennifer A. Richeson and Richard J. Nussbaum, "The Impact of Multiculturalism Versus Color-Blindness on Racial Bias." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 40, no. 3 (2004): 417-423. 22 Phillip Atiba Goff, Claude M. Steele, and Paul G. Davies, "The Space Between Us: Stereotype Threat and Distance in Interracial Contexts," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94, no. 1 (2008): 91107. 23 Trawalter and Richeson, “Regulatory Focus and Executive Function.”
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! forging a common group identity can help people perceive racial outgroup members as ingroup members, thereby reducing the demands of the interaction.24 These strategies are likely to be even more effective if paired with increased resources. As noted, the most useful resource for meeting the demands of interracial contact is to have a social script. A script is simply a template for how some event should go (in this case an interaction). It provides structure to the meeting or interaction. It lets people anticipate what is coming up next so that they can be ready. And it provides a shared “language” people can use (during this time, it is “safe” to talk about race, gender, or other typically taboo topic). With a social script, it would not be out of place to bring up the topic because the participants expect it. Research has shown that providing white individuals with a script—what to say and when to say it—can greatly improve interracial contact.25 Consider these two real-world examples. IBM recognized that discussing race-related issues was stressful and that these discussions were therefore avoided. They implemented “5-min drills,” a structured time during meetings when executives had to identify and discuss minority employees deserving of promotions. This structured time provided a predictable, promotion-focused, and safe environment to talk about a diversity-related issue. Other companies have used icebreakers. Even though icebreakers may seem silly, the activity gives employees a loose script to help them initiate and navigate interracial contact. These social scripts are helpful only insofar as companies can implement them. Thus, resources necessary to implement these scripts are important too. These resources can include physical resources such as glucose (energy) levels and psychosocial resources such as social status. Social status is an important resource in any social interaction. It confers respect. In the context of interracial contact, it has long been recognized that equal status promotes positive interactions (Allport, 1954).26 This may be especially important for minorities who are often concerned about being disrespected (i.e., discriminated against). In short, interracial interactions must be set up in a way to support the effective use of social scripts and the individuals must have enough personal resources to implement those scripts.
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Elliot Aronson and Shelley Patnoe, The Jigsaw Classroom: Building Cooperation in the Classroom (New York: Longman, 1997); Samuel L. Gaertner, John F. Dovidio, Phyllis A. Anastasio, Betty A. Bachman, and Mary C. Rust, "The Common Ingroup Identity Model: Recategorization and the Reduction of Intergroup Bias," European Review of Social Psychology 4, no. 1 (1993): 1-26. 25 Derek R. Avery, Jennifer A. Richeson, Michelle R. Hebl, and Nalini Ambady, "It Does Not Have To Be Uncomfortable: The Role of Behavioral Scripts In Black–White Interracial Interactions," Journal of Applied Psychology 94, no. 6 (2009): 1382-1393; Jennifer A. Richeson and Sophie Trawalter, "Why Do Interracial Interactions Impair Executive Function? A Resource Depletion Account," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88, no. 6 (2005): 934-947. 26 Allport, “Nature of Prejudice.”!
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! Conclusion The United Statesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; population is increasingly diverse and interracial interactions are stressful. One solution to resolve this stress is to avoid interracial interactions. The problem with this solution, of course, is that diversity is not a choice but a fact of U.S. society. As a nation, we are committed to the ideals of equal opportunity and we know from experience that separate is not equal. The solution is to cope with the stress of interracial contact. Unfortunately, most of our coping responses are not conducive to positive interactions. Often, people antagonize, avoid, or freeze. People can cope in a more positive and constructive way, however, by positively engaging. Leaders can learn and teach others to positively engage if they are able to reduce the demands of interracial contact and increase the resources people have for meeting those demands. Only then will leveraging diversity be possible. ! Sophie Trawalter is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Psychology at the University of Virginiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Her research examines psychological processes that contribute to social disparities. Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi is a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an expert in social perception, attitudes and prejudice. She uses quantitative methods to investigate the psychological mechanisms that give rise to status-related disparities.
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Aligning Rhetoric and Research: The Unbalanced Development of the Vinegar Hill Plan Elena Weissmann Vinegar Hill Vinegar Hill, once home to an almost exclusively African American population, was the hub of black cultural and economic life in Charlottesville. The majority of Charlottesville’s black homeowners found residence in this neighborhood, which bordered the Central Business District (now the Downtown Mall). Black-owned businesses thrived, oftentimes serving white customers alongside white-owned businesses. While 1960s Charlottesville shouldered the legacy of massive resistance, it enjoyed to a bourgeoning economy with a multiracial component uncharacteristic of 1960s America. As early as the 1920s, Main Street was a busy economic hub where black-owned businesses served a diverse clientele. Aside from the business component, however, the neighborhood as a socio-cultural center catered almost exclusively to the black populace: “For decades it was the site of the city’s only black school. Black churches were on the Hill, and on Saturday evenings the Blue Diamond Nightclub hummed the strains of the latest jazz tunes.”1 Former Vinegar Hill residents recall its one dance hall as the ubiquitous site of almost every community gathering, and many mention pool halls as the flashpoint for Charlottesville’s black social experience.2 Even for those who lived beyond the Hill, it served as a central gathering place; as one resident recalls, all the schoolboys would say “I’ll meet you on the Hill at 1:00, and stay there till the sun goes down.”3 In January 1954, the Charlottesville City Council voted affirmatively to create a Housing Authority, with the express purpose of addressing the “unsanitary and unsafe inhabited dwelling accommodations [that] exist in the city.”4 By 1960, the Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority (CRHA) began a public campaign to support the establishment of a redevelopment plan for what they called the city’s burdensome slum: Vinegar Hill, declared blighted and unfit for residential capacity. Through a series of professional appraisals and re-zoning processes, Charlottesville authorities developed and executed a demolition plan for the Hill and relocated most of its residents to the Westhaven public housing project nearby. In doing so, City Council and the CRHA harnessed the nation’s momentum toward urban renewal, grounding it locally through the circulation of informational pamphlets, Daily Progress articles, and public speeches. Charlottesville institutions diverged from national patterns in their creation of a plan for Vinegar Hill, creating a wholly local product whose rhetoric pervaded the public sphere.
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Renae Nadine Shackelford James Robert Saunders, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia: An Oral History of Vinegar Hill, New edition (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2005), 3. 2 “From Porch Swings to Patios: An Oral History of Charlottesville’s Neighborhoods," 84 1982, http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/afam/raceandplace/oralhistory_porchswings.html. 3 Drewary Brown, "From Porch Swings to Patios: An Oral History of Charlottesville’s Neighborhoods," December 16, 1980, http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/afam/raceandplace/oralhistory_porchswings.html. 4 Saunders, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia, 3.
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! Vinegar Hill is often touted as a prime example of policy gone wrong; a manifestation of a government representing privileged interests and glossing over those of minority groups. Yet, a close examination of the complex web of influence surrounding the plan’s dissemination and development reveals no myriad “smoking guns” or necessarily wrongful intentions, but rather increasingly powerful forces of economic development and societal rationalization.5 These forces were compounded by the nation’s quest to transform slums into viable sources of income and human capital, in pursuit of a more productive and healthful society. The Vinegar Hill plan for urban renewal ultimately garnered local support through humanitarian language, while simultaneously attracting federal funding by using economic framing and developing measurable standards for economic success. In this way, the plan integrated the two major national approaches to slum clearance and redevelopment – morality and economy – and was a policy success from a legislative standpoint. However, as this paper will help contextualize, the plan’s promises of a nobler and more financially stable city never came to fruition because the institutional rhetoric of accounting for residents’ needs and interests never became practice. The Plan’s Economic and Humanitarian Framing Despite its relatively powerful market share and cultural importance to the community, many outsiders saw the Hill as a grungy threat to the rest of Charlottesville. Government appraisals, newspaper articles, and pamphlets illustrate that the Hill’s physical environs stood in marked contrast to the expectations of a City government with little minority representation striving for national prominence. In presenting the neighborhood as uninhabitable and unproductive, media and government agencies made both economic and humanistic appeals. This two-pronged approach allowed the plan’s framers to garner local buy-in as well as federal support through the Urban Renewal Program. The humanistic and moral framing occurred primarily in the public forum, while the actual arbiters of the plan were concerned with economic data. The popular mid-1900s tactic of using garish descriptions to raise political sympathy was adopted by Charlottesville planners and City Council candidates, as exemplified by the Daily Progress article that characterized Vinegar Hill as an area “where neighborhood conditions and dwellings have become detrimental to health, safety and morals.”6 By referencing the archetypical trifecta of health, safety, and morality, the article aligns the project with beloved American values, leaving little room for dissent. Campaigners for public office also relied heavily on moral arguments that appealed to their constituents’ consciences. In a 1960 speech, former Charlottesville Mayor Thomas J. Michie pressed citizens to recognize that “you cannot escape this problem by saying that you are not your brother’s keeper. For conditions like this affect the entire community.” He also defended the residents’ agency by saying “those people do have to live there. There is nowhere else for them to go, much as they would like to.” He noted that most other cities the size of Charlottesville, and almost all cities in Virginia, had taken steps to provide public housing, almost making it citizens’ responsibility as Americans to support the plan. To appeal to the forward-thinking 1960s mentality, Michie predicted that “the substitution of a fine modern business section for the slum area now existing back of Vinegar Hill would be the most forward looking step that has been
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Bill Erster, Oral Interview, February 8, 2013. Saunders, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia, 31.
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! taken in Charlottesville in many, many, years.”7 As a whole, Michie appealed to “the conscience of the white majority”8 while also characterizing the plan as necessary for Charlottesville’s overall progress and alignment with national standards. Out of public view, however, the majority of the actual proposal’s framing was economic. In their preliminary housing report and projections in 1957, the Charlottesville Planning Commission’s contracted firm, Harland Bartholomew (HB), mandated that “the need for citizen understanding and participation is mandatory in this phase of planning,” indicating a motivation of improving quality of life. 9 However, the report contains little if any insight from Vinegar Hill residents, overriding that option with discussions about how imposing a total neighborhood overhaul will economically benefit the city. Harland Bartholomew conferred privately to the Charlottesville Planning Commission that Vinegar Hill “occupies land potentially useful for commercial expansion. Clearance and redevelopment of the area would also expedite the improvement of traffic flow into the Central Business District.”10 Arguments for economic development coalesced in the City’s plan, which reflected concerns about the loss of downtown business to the newly constructed Barracks Road shopping center. By the 1960s, the center was quickly capturing market share from the Central Business District close to Vinegar Hill. The proposals were intended to reallocate the industry downtown through the construction of the Ridge-McIntire bypass, the removal of unsightly slums, and a clearing of land for new businesses in the area.11 As further economic reasoning, Harland Bartholomew reminded the government: Bad housing is costly. It is costly directly, in that areas of bad housing require disproportionately large expenditures for fire and police protection, health and sanitary services and administration, yet return very little in the form of taxes. It is also costly in that it occupies land of great locational importance adjacent to the central business district. Its depreciating effect and that of hindering logical growth represents an intangible cost far greater than direct cost.12 The Daily Progress also uses similar economic reasoning to frame the issue – albeit in general terms – citing “orderly renewal of worn out and obsolete areas,” and the minimization of “traffic congestion, dwindling businesses, outmoded buildings, disorganized use of downtown property, falling property values, [and] soaring civic costs.” 13 The authors assuage readers’ potential concerns through economic reasoning, characterizing the federal government as behaving like a “private investor” and detailing numerically the finances behind the system.
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Mayor Thomas J. Michie in Saunders, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia. 8 Ibid., 35. 9 Harland Bartholomew & Associates and Charlottesville (Va ) City Planning Commission, A Preliminary Report Upon Housing, Charlottesville, Virginia: Prepared for the City Planning Commission, 1957. 10 Ibid., 16. 11 Guian McKee, April 4, 2013. 12 Bartholomew Associates, A Preliminary Report Upon Housing, Charlottesville, Virginia, 11. 13 Ibid.
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! Economic justifications for the plan were so pervasive that they entered the collective memory of Vinegar Hill residents themselves. George Ferguson, a former resident, recalls that “the whole area was a blight,” and discussed the benefits of home rentals over ownership – a staple in an argument for the resident relocation plan to Westhaven. 14 Charles Johnson, the sole black candidate for City Council during the period, told voters: Slums, wherever they exist in the City, are a blight on the City and a breeding place for many of our social problems. They should be eradicated. This should be done by promoting housing and urban renewal projects. Homes should be built for the displaced persons and the slum area in the central business districts should be redeveloped to make this area attractive.15 Johnson’s words match precisely with the arguments brought forth by the Planning Commission and Harland Bartholomew. Vinegar Hill’s own residents used the terminology “blight,” indicating that their self-conceptions were to some degree wrought through the plan’s rhetoric. Ultimately, humanitarian rationale gave way to the professed economic necessity of the plan for renewal. The Daily Progress reported that “Council voted to have a survey made of gross income taxes paid and similar data from businesses now located in the redevelopment area.”16 This financial system of metrics for determining the project’s success corroborates the idea that economic development was the crux of the plan for Vinegar Hill. By using commercial-based data as the sole indicator of the plan’s success, these planning agencies pegged economic progress as the one true mark of improvement. Such a tracking system essentially undermines the argument that the plan was necessary from a standards-of-living or moral perspective. As seen in the map below, the 1960 proposed plan for total Vinegar Hill renewal centered on the creation of both commercial and residential growth, with retail establishments composing the bulk of the development.
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George Ferguson, "From Porch Swings to Patios: An Oral history of Charlottesville’s Neighborhoods," December 15, 1980, http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/afam/raceandplace/oralhistory_porchswings.html. 15 1960 Tribune: “Charles C. Johnson, Seventh Candidate for City Council, Announces Platform Today.” 16 Ibid.
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! The “fine,” “pleasant,” and “plentiful” visions of Vinegar Hill as publicized by the City were thus rooted in the idea that once the neighborhood’s unsightly homes and shops were razed, the rest of Charlottesville could contribute to the creation of this beacon of progress.17 By focusing on the creation of retail establishments, Harland Bartholomew and the Charlottesville Development Group framed the plan in terms of the area’s financial potential. Vinegar Hill and the Federal Government The prominence of money over morals in the plan’s framing helped solidify the federal acknowledgement and support of Charlottesville’s plan for Vinegar Hill. The plan both reflected and contradicted national and global trends towards urban renewal, rationalization, and separation of groups. Though the federal government funds were not tied to racialized development, Harland Bartholomew’s insistence that Charlottesville acquire federal funds and homogenize its neighborhoods aligns with historian Carl Nightingale’s depiction of the era as one in which the US federal government “took on a new more decisive role in dividing American cities by race.”18 The Vinegar Hill plan was not explicitly racial, but the fact that 119 of the 136 households were African-American cannot be overlooked; these data personify the ubiquitous overlap of race and urban policies, especially surrounding issues of blight.19 While some components of the plan reflect the legacy of urban renewal, other aspects contradict it. Many historians characterize federal assistance during this period as focused on “job training [that] could reduce poverty by improving individual skills and changing behavioral characteristics without addressing the structure of the economy.”20 In contrast, the Vinegar Hill plan emphasized changing the larger context, focusing not on personal rehabilitation but on overhauled economic and housing development. The Vinegar Hill plan aligns more with Philadelphia’s widely modeled Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC) model, which Guian McKee discusses further in The Problem of Jobs: [The OIC] claimed the longstanding American traditions of self-help and self-reliance, blended them with themes of community uplift that had animated northern African American communities since before the Civil War, and placed them in the context of the reciprocal obligations – of the citizen to work and of the state to provide pragmatic assistance when needed – that underlay the commitments of the liberal U.S. state.21
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“Advantages of Urban Renewal”, Daily Progress, in Saunders, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia, 31–32. 18 Carl H. Nightingale, Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Chicago!; London: University Of Chicago Press, 2012), 341. 19 Saunders, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia, 4. 20 Guian A. McKee, The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2008), 15. 21 Ibid., 114.
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! Similarly in Charlottesville, arguments both for a strengthened tax base through increased productivity and paternalistic state intervention fed the Vinegar Hill proposal. The Vinegar Hill plan mirrored not only the federal rhetoric of individual uplift, but also the more recently emerging emphasis on systemic change characteristic of the OIC model. The OIC plan, a more structural model than its policy contemporaries, resonated nationally and was supported for national expansion by many large corporations and federal institutions such as the Department of Labor and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In Charlottesville, Mayor Michie invoked this idea of social reciprocity in his aforementioned “brother’s keeper” speech.22 Throughout the 1960s, social science trended towards scholars who “saw poverty as a cultural and even psychological phenomenon” and “shifted attention toward the social and cultural roots of poverty,” which “implicitly downplayed the importance of the structural” issues and focused on the individual.23 This trend makes the Vinegar Hill plan’s balancing of structural emphasis with individualistic appeals all the more striking, generating the unique combination that gave the plan broad appeal and allowed for implementation. Even within the structural focus, the urban development movement of the era was bifurcated by two dueling interests: economic development and housing improvement. The 1940s gave rise to a federal urban development agenda focused on housing, with the Housing Act of 1949 framed around the idea that a person’s physical environment critically shapes their future. The key idea was that the implementation of “modern housing” in slums’ stead would serve as a catalyst for progress in all other regards.24 However, a nationwide trend of crumbling Central Business Districts led authorities to focus on rebuilding cities through economic means. The Vinegar Hill plan for renewal serves as an example of the convergence of the two impetuses of business and housing. City media and authorities cannot seem to determine their primary goal: progress through improved housing conditions, or through a downtown business boom. In reporting on the plans, the Daily Progress oscillates between justifications rooted in economic revitalization and in moral/housing-based rationale. In many cases, particularly campaign speeches, public figures turned increasingly to a moral argument, appealing to the consciences of civilians rather than their pockets. This deep-set bifurcation contextualizes the plan’s unfortunate legacy. When subject to competing pulls of economic reasoning (coupled with federal funding) and humanitarian reasoning (coupled only with hopes of public support), the planners chose the pragmatist’s route of economic framing. Still, they continued to lend superficial support to the humanitarian argument, and promises of local engagement never ended. In fact, this was Harland Bartholomew’s recommendation from the onset of the planning stage; that Charlottesville launch an improvement plan using federal funds and local engagement to redevelop Vinegar Hill. In reference to this recommendation, the plan says “The method of clearing slum property and improving it for redevelopment, almost without exception, requires participation in the Federal Urban Renewal program.”25 However, the authors also cite the importance of an “all-inclusive
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Saunders and Shackleford pg 33-34 (Daily Progress June 10, 1960) Saunders, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia, 93–94. 24 McKee, interview. 25 Associates and Commission, A Preliminary Report Upon Housing, Charlottesville, Virginia, 12. 23
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! approach” and local buy-in, because “the means of combatting blight and assuring desirable neighborhoods lies within the community.”26 The City was urged to pursue a two-pronged approach to the Vinegar Hill issue: align itself with the Federal Urban Renewal program, and convince its residents of the plan’s necessity and future benefit by using a more relatable moralistic argument. Despite the resonance of this recommendation at the policy formation level, in practice it ultimately failed in both a humanitarian and economic sense, leaving a legacy of mistrust and a swath of vacant pavement. Failure of the Plan From the plan’s onset, Harland Bartholomew and the CDG maintained their dedication to using local input and engagement to create and implement the plan. However, little if any historical evidence exists to suggest the manifestation of this recommendation. The CDG and its predecessor organizations favored economic arguments and standards in their policies, despite a public campaign framed in humanitarian terms. Whether this is attributed to federal funding trends, the complicated nature of quantifying standards of living, or something else altogether, the legislative focus on economic growth overwhelmed the humanitarian case for Vinegar Hill in the plan’s language, implementation, and legacy. Compounding the lack of local engagement was the fact that the discussion of Vinegar Hill’s fate does not appear to be of intense or procedural debate among those to whom it mattered most. As a complement to the Daily Progress, Charlottesville’s black community published the bi-weekly Charlottesville Tribune, which chronicled community happenings as familial as which guests were visiting and who had fallen ill. However, only three headlines from 1960-1975 were devoted to the plan. As the plans developed through the 1960s, the Tribune paid close attention to local students’ academic achievement, US-African relations, beauty pageants, and school desegregation, but rarely Vinegar Hill. Only a few headlines focused on the economic development associated with the plan, and these articles described the opinions of major businessowners and clergy regarding the area’s fate, but none offered an editorial opinion or details of any community debate. If the City pursued the humanitarian argument it circulated during the plan’s early stages, it would have found itself confronting the purported need for the plan. In their 1957 proposal, HB references broad national trends without evidence of their manifestation at a local level. For example, the report concludes that “one of the most important causes of residential blight is overcrowding,”27 but characterizes Charlottesville with “the lowest indication of overcrowding in 1950 of the five cities compared,” demonstrating a three percentage-point decrease in overcrowding since 1940. They write that overall, “the general condition of housing in Charlottesville was better than any of the other cities compared. There was a lower percentage of dilapidated dwelling units and a lower percentage of dwelling units without adequate toilet and bath facilities” than the comparison cities.28 Still, however, Vinegar Hill was pegged for overhaul.
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Ibid. Ibid 28 Associates and Commission, A Preliminary Report Upon Housing, Charlottesville, Virginia, 7–8. 27
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! Because the plan’s humanitarian rhetoric misrepresented the community, the plan relied on generalized statements about slums and how to improve the quality of life for their residents. In 1960, soon after the plan was approved, the Daily Progress characterizes Vinegar Hill as a “slum,” a term the article defines using national statistics: In an average city, slums account for 33 per cent of the population, 45 per cent of the major crimes, 55 per cent of juvenile delinquency, 50 per cent of arrests, 60 per cent of Tuberculosis victims, 50 per cent of disease, 35 per cent of fires, 45 per cent of total city service costs, and contribute 6 per cent of the tax revenues.29 The coupling of an argument driven by numbers and values is near indisputable. In this single article, the Daily Progress manages to present Vinegar Hill as both a hazard to its own residents and a drain on the urban economy. Furthermore, by referencing an “average city,” the authors contextualize the project in a legitimate national framework. In fact, throughout most of the Daily Progress’s articles about renewal, there is no mention of Vinegar Hill itself. It is subsumed amid justifications for slum clearing in general, in what can perhaps be seen as an avenue to avoid consideration for the risks associated with relocating an entire community. By presenting these generalized arguments that appeal to both the reason and emotion of readers, the Daily Progress effectively characterizes the proposal as a humane and necessary component of the nation’s future. Legacy and Memory The rhetoric surrounding the plan for Vinegar Hill resonated with a city striving for national prominence, economic development, and standardization. Its economic and humanitarian rationale can be neatly contextualized in 1960s America, but it was not grounded in reality through the use of localized data. Though this trend cannot be undone, current efforts by community organizations and even local government agencies attempt to envision the dismantled community by compiling residents’ accounts of life on Vinegar Hill. In 1990, former Charlottesville mayor Lawrence Burton and current mayor Satyendra Huja created an oral history project called “From Patios to Porch Swings.” Their work, later published by the City of Charlottesville, includes recorded and annotated interviews with local residents whose families were displaced from their homes throughout the plan’s implementation. Mayor Huja explained that the project is important because it “reveal[s] a great deal in terms of the neighborhood and its visions for tomorrow.”30 However, a holistic account of Vinegar Hill’s history and any future reconciliation projects require not only a look inward, but also a look back. As poignant as the former residents’ spoken values may be, they should not be decoupled from the history to which they are inextricably tied. The rhetoric and framing with which the City presented the plan undoubtedly reflected and helped shape these “visions,” especially in a national context.
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Saunders, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia, 32. “From Porch Swings to Patios: An Oral History of Charlottesville’s Neighborhoods," http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/afam/raceandplace/porches_info.html.
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! Now, with the elucidation of Vinegar Hill’s memory through these and other projects, this trend can work in reverse; the City’s policies can reflect local visions both past and present. Just as residential accounts are intertwined with Charlottesville’s history, visions for Charlottesville’s future should embody local perceptions and data. George Ferguson, the oral history interviewee who used the term “blight” to describe Vinegar Hill, reflected on the conditions of the homes destroyed in the renewal plan. He agreed with the prompt that some of the homes were in livable and even favorable condition, recalling that “the people were satisfied with… the few nice homes” in the neighborhood.31 When asked how city authorities justified the expropriation of the nicer properties, Ferguson conjectured: That’s part of the urban renewal. When you decide a location is going to be [subject to] urban renewal, you have to comply with the federal government, and you buy up a certain tract of land, and you redevelop it… any time you have urban renewal, they don’t just spot it – they take the whole area.32 The fact that Vinegar Hill residents could validate the destruction of perfectly viable homes using the language of government agents indicates the pervasiveness of such framing, and how easily people can be convinced without real local evidence. Not only did the government’s terminology enter public discourse, but their justifications did as well. Even in reference to the failed relocation of residents to the Westhaven public housing development, Ferguson is forgiving of the process because “a lot of those people who are living in Westhaven, for instance, are much better accommodated than they were before – they have the heat, utilities, and everything gets taken care of.”33 In answering the common rebuttal that residents actually spoke out against the plan when it was carried out, Ferguson muses, “Urban Renewal as it came about, and any time you have anything that’s disrupted, there are a lot of people that don’t like it. But we live in a time of change…”34 Ferguson’s relatively positive account of the plan and its legacy contrast deeply with the overall collective memory. Using national policy trends as an explanation for local realities is an unsustainable and even dangerous practice that overlooks the need for local engagement, and its necessary products of evidence and buy-in. While it is true that the plan for Vinegar Hill did reflect certain priorities and trends of the national arena, there was “a deference to localism built into most liberal social programs.”35 The City of Charlottesville was granted and still has the ability to pursue its own social development agenda. This fact ultimately failed a segment of its citizenry in relocating Vinegar Hill residents to the Westhaven community, which has been considered a “second ghetto.” Charlottesville’s social service providers continue to face a common element of mistrust—a testament to how the collective memory of the Vinegar Hill relocations remains an intergenerational force that shapes public opinion today. In the case of the
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Brown, "From Porch Swings to Patios.” Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Brown, "From Porch Swings to Patios." 35 Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, Revised edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 60. 32
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! Charlottesville plan for Vinegar Hillâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s renewal, policy success ended behind the desk because of dueling goals and a lack of local engagement. ! Elena Weissmann graduated from the Batten School with a Master in Public Policy degree in 2014. She focused on urban policy and public-private partnerships. She received the Batten Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pilot Award, served on the graduate council, and fell out of the raft on the Leadership Retreat whitewater trip. She now works with the Bronx Defenders in fulfillment of a yearlong service fellowship. This report was adapted from Elena's History capstone paper, which she completed under the advisement of Professor Alon Confino and the dedicated staff of the Small Special Collection Library.
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Why America’s Infatuation with “Grit” Can’t Solve Our Educational Dilemmas Anindya Kundu Pedro Noguera Glorifying Grit: Solutions Too Simple In recent conversations surrounding education, the buzzword “grit” has surfaced as a key determinant of a student’s success. Given America’s admiration for rugged individualism, it makes sense that we glorify guts and grit. Having grit implies having tenacity, passion, and an ability to dust yourself off and pull yourself up by the bootstraps. What is less clear, however, is why this idea of grit has emerged as the key component to public school achievement. University of Pennsylvania psychologist and MacArthur Genius grantee Angela Lee Duckworth has convincingly argued that grit is a desirable trait that predicts student achievement. In her research paper, “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long Term Goals,” she also implies that every student has grit and the ability to access it.1 Overemphasizing grit directs attention away from important factors that affect student success. Saying that student A achieves because she has “grit” ignores the hurdles in the path of student B, whose underachievement is attributed to his or her personality deficits. Conflating grit and success justifies ignoring the unique structural hardships that some students face, many of which may not be apparent on the surface. Take for example Pablo Garcia, a recent graduate of a high school in the Bronx, N.Y. Pablo and his family moved to the United States from Mexico when he was eight years old and spoke no English. His mother supported him and his five siblings by working as a maid. Pablo helped out financially as much as he could. Despite all of these obstacles, Pablo maintained a straight A average and graduated high school with honors. All of Pablo’s teachers expected him to excel into college, due to his grit and determination. However, instead of continuing his education, Pablo is now working as an assistant manager at a McDonald’s in New York. Pablo’s commendable grit could not make up for the fact that he was undocumented and in America illegally. Infinite grit could not help him get the financial aid he needed to go to college. Pablo’s story personifies the problem with focusing on grit: losing sight of structural obstacles that face many young scholars. When the onus of achievement falls on personality traits, academic failure becomes a matter of individual, not collective, concern. Poor student outcomes are no longer society’s problems, but just their problems. Other key issues that affect
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 !Angela Duckworth, Christopher Peterson, Michael D. Matthews, and Dennis R. Kelly. "Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92, no. 6 (2007): 1087.
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! performance like teacher quality, cultural differences between students and teachers, disparities in per-public spending between schools, and differences in how much time middle-class and working-class children spend on learning also fall out of sight. This same idea underlies the ubiquitous use of the phrase “achievement gap” instead of “opportunity gap.” Structural Barriers: An American Backdrop Hypothetically speaking, if all students had the same starting set of opportunities, measuring grit would be more valuable and predictive of future success. However, access to opportunity is anything but equal. Social science research has consistently shown that public school students from wealthier backgrounds attain higher levels of education than other students.2 Only six percent of Americans born in the lowest income quintile make it to the top quintile. Similarly, only nine percent of people from the top quintile ever end up at the bottom.3 Given these statistics, the United States continues to have the highest income inequality among first-world nations. The American Dream certainly works better for some than for others. A student’s demographic profile is still the best predictor of college-readiness—with the students’ race, zip code, and family income at the very top of the list. In New York City neighborhoods with 100 percent black and Latino residents, only ten percent of high school seniors are collegeready. On the other hand, NYC neighborhoods with low numbers of black and Latino residents are the most college-ready.4 Problematically, lack of schooling leads to worse outcomes now than ever before. Today, only one out of ten American jobs are available to high school dropouts, 42 percent of all jobs require a college degree, and another 17 percent require at least some amount of college education. At the same time, poorer students also need school and positive institutions more than other students because they have more basic needs going unmet, like regular meals or adult supervision. Thus, the nature of the problem cannot be remedied by telling these children to keep their chins up and heads forward and set their eyes on a prize they cannot conceptualize. Underachievement also harms economic growth. A McKinsey study showed that if America narrowed its achievement gap between white students and black and Latino students, the gross domestic product (GDP) would be between $310 billion to $525 billion higher.5 The implication is that our economy benefits when we bring up low-achieving schools without needing to bring
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Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, "Schooling in Capitalist America Revisited," Sociology of Education (2002): 1-18.! 3 John Marsh, Class Dismissed: Why We Cannot Teach or Learn Our Way Out of Inequality (NYU Press, 2011). 4 Keith Catone and Alexa LeBoeuf, "Student-Centered Education Starts with Student-Led Reform," Annenberg Institute for School Reform, last modified November 12, 2012, http://annenberginstitute.org/?q=commentary/2012/11/student-centered-education-starts-student-ledreform.! 5 Byron G. Auguste, Bryan Hancock, and Martha Laboissière, "The Economic Cost of the US Education Gap," The McKinsey Quarterly, last modified June 2009, http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/social_sector/the_economic_cost_of_the_us_education_gap.!
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! down those who are already high achievers. And in our latest recession, our more educated communities recovered faster than those with less educated populations. In our capitalist America, privilege begets privilege. Our best public schools are nestled within our wealthiest communities, and our poorest performing schools are in the poorest. The importance of a community’s per capita income to student success undermines claims of meritocracy. Thus, while there remains the egalitarian burden on schools to be an equalizing force, the onus is unreasonable because schools face drastically unequal challenges. Policies that look to equalize opportunities, such as offering universal free breakfast for all students regardless of income, have been proven to increase attendance and academic achievement. This goes to show that equal treatment can have immense benefits and that education should first and foremost be considered a collective issue. The Social Responsibilities of Education: Answers in Agency In education, instead of trying to leverage individual traits to generate success, we should first look for solutions at intersection of character virtues and social capacity building. If approached correctly, these solutions may even prove easier to enact and be more powerful. Rather than grit, solutions can be found with agency. Used by social scientists, agency implies action without glossing over structural inequality because it must combat these forces to truly exist. Having agency requires the ability to act and affect one’s surroundings and takes into account social factors that may prevent a person from achieving. Agency is also collective as it acknowledges the existence of a world outside the individual. This is a critical feature lacking in the concept of grit, which by definition focuses solely on the individual. “Everyday parents and teachers ask me, ‘How do I build grit in kids?’” psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth says in her TedTalk. “The honest answer is, I don’t know.” Focusing on narrow solutions like grit alleviate our collective responsibilities to care for all students. In education, agency can be easier to generate than grit, and fostering agency has the potential to be extremely powerful. In 2011, PS 40, a low-income public school located in the BedfordStuyvesant neighborhood, obtained the highest gains in literacy and math of any public elementary school in Brooklyn. The school’s scores have been steadily improving for over ten years; in 2005 their percentage of fourth graders deemed proficient in math jumped an unparalleled 40 points.6 These accomplishments are extraordinary considering that 100 percent of the children came from families below the poverty line, 28 percent of the students were categorized as needing special education, and 40 percent of them were homeless. Undoubtedly, these children and teachers possessed enormous grit, but more telling of their success story is the collective agency that helped them contend with their significant obstacles.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 6!David
Herszenhorn, “Math Scores Statewide Show Gains in 4th Grade,” The New York Times, September 23, 2005.!
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! PS 40 responded to both the academic and non-academic needs of their students by building partnerships with local service agencies, expanding access to health services, extending the school day, and working with community-based organizations to address parent needs as well. In so doing, this school improved academic achievement by working to expand opportunity, and thus agency. Comparing PS 40's progress to the Harlem Children’s Zone helps put PS 40's achievement into perspective. The Harlem Children Zone is often touted as a model for urban school reform while also spending thousands of dollars more per student than PS 40. And in 2010, the Children’s Zone’s operating budget was a whopping $84 million, primarily generated from private donations. Yet in 2010, Promise Academy II, the Harlem Children Zone’s elementary school, received an F in the student progress category from New York City and only 15 percent of its seventh graders passed the New York State English test.7 Thus, we can see money alone cannot solve our educational dilemmas. Schools must be innovative to extend agency and meet demands of the modern day. Teach a Kid to Fish, But Don’t Stop There Agency has lifelong implications. Students stand to make immense academic and life gains if actually taught and mentored to empower themselves. Though Pablo is still working at McDonalds, today he is also organizing others like him to work for immigration reform. Instead of accepting his plight as inevitable, Pablo continues to exemplify grit while building agency for himself and others. Acting on behalf of students is critical to showing young people what can be achieved regardless of institutional and bureaucratic constraints. Effective altruism on the part of the privileged means doses of both charity and progressive action. While hand-outs are helpful, hand-ups are influential. Although grit is beneficial to a young person’s future success, without agency, or the ability to act, it is not enough. To stand by the claim that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, everyone at least needs bootstraps. In education, we should utilize volunteer groups and after school programs to distribute resources more equitably. We should also harness the power of good, experienced teachers by changing the current incentive-structures so that more teachers willingly go into our neediest communities and lend their talents to those schools. For solutions to be optimal they need to be tailored to fit their problems and also include opportunities for collective action. Some say universal approaches, ironically named “blanket approaches”, work for all of our students, but in reality ignore those most in need and leave many issues uncovered. Teach a kid to fish, and you teach him to feed himself.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 7!Sharon
Otterman, "Despite Money and Attention, It's Not All A's at 2 Harlem Schools," The New York Times, October 12, 2010.!
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! But why stop there? If you help him understand why the river is polluted, he and his friends can organize to clean the river, making it possible for the whole community to eat as well. ! Anindya Kundu is a doctoral student in the Sociology of Education program at New York University. He is interested in youth social justice awareness. His research specifically focuses on how to empower disenfranchised youth and promote their agency through interest-driven outlets. You may contact him at kundu@nyu.edu. Pedro Noguera is the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University. Dr. Noguera is an urban sociologist whose scholarship and research focuses on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions, as well as by demographic trends.
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Automated License Plate Readers in Virginia Natasha Reese-McLaughlin Introduction An automated license plate reader (ALPR) is a surveillance method that combines high-speed cameras with optical character recognition. ALPRs convert license plate images into data, which can either be searched against databases or stored for future use. Law enforcement agencies most common use ALPRs. They mount ALPRs onto patrol cars or stationary objects along roads such as telephone poles. ALPRs allow officers to almost instantaneously run passing license plates against lists of stolen cars, outstanding warrants, and AMBER or Blue alerts. Recognizing these public safety benefits, the Department of Homeland Security distributed over $50 million in grants, earmarked for law enforcement offices’ ALPR acquisitions throughout the United States1. This led to the wide-dissemination of the technology and now 70 percent of police departments report using some form of ALPR. 2 Despite extensive use, only five states (Maine, New Hampshire, Arkansas, Vermont, and Utah) have laws governing ALPR use.3 Since license plates contain identifiable personal information, ALPRs raise questions regarding the optimal balance between public safety and privacy concerns. ALPRs in Virginia Until spring 2013 the Virginia State Police (VSP) maintained a database of millions of geotagged and time-stamped license plate images.4 This database caused controversy when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported that the VSP captured and stored the license plates of vehicles attending events, including those at President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration and Sarah Palin campaign rallies.5 As a result of this controversy, the database was deleted. Current VSP policy states that data collected by ALPRs can only be stored for 24 hours, unless it is relevant to a clearly defined criminal investigation.6 Virginia ALPR Policy Recommendation Virginia needs a law that delineates the appropriate uses for ALPRs and the length of time for which the data collected can be stored. While the VSP has internal policies regarding ALPR use, mission creep, or expansion of the original mission, could lead law officers to legally revert back to the original and controversial system. I propose amending the Government Data Collection and
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“You Are Being Tracked: How License Plate Readers Are Being Used to Record Americans’ Movements.” American Civil Liberties Union, July 2013. 2 “How Are Innovations in Technology Transforming Policing?” Police Executive Research Forum, Critical Issues in Policing Series, January 2012. 3 “Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR): A Civil Liberties Briefing,” American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, September 2013. 4 Rebecca Glenberg, “Virginia State Police Used License Plate Readers At Political Rallies, Built Huge Database,” American Civil Liberties Union, October 8, 2013. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.
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Dissemination Practice Act to include language specifically related to ALPRs.7 The proposed policy seeks to address the three main questions associated with ALPRs: 1) can they be used; 2) how can they be used; and 3) how long can law enforcement agencies keep the data collected? This new policy establishes that: • • • • •
ALPRs can be used in the state of Virginia, but only by law enforcement; Law enforcement agencies must release yearly reports on their ALPR usage; ALPRs can be used both for active and passive surveillance; Data collected by ALPRs must be deleted after 24 hours, unless it is pertinent to a defined criminal investigation; and Only data that is pertinent to a defined criminal investigation can be shared with agencies outside of Virginia.
Can ALPRs Be Used in Virginia? In Katz v. United States, the Court said that the Fourth Amendment protects an individual’s privacy interests where “a person [has] exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and… the expectation [is] one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable’”.8 The U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has twice ruled that, “because they are in plain view, no privacy interest exists in license plates.”9 Given that Virginians have no expectation to license plate privacy, ALPRs can be used by state law enforcement agencies. ALPR opponents may cite that ALPRs should be banned under the 4th amendment because they constitute “unreasonable searches.” The Court, however, has ruled that enhancing technologies (binoculars, sniffing dogs, aerial imaging) do not constitute illegal or unreasonable searches.10 ALPRs are considered enhancing technologies as, in the words of Lynchburg Police Chief Zuidema, they allow police to “do more efficiently and effectively the police work [they] are already doing.”11 Thus, using ALPRs in Virginia will likely not create constitutional concerns. How Can ALPRs Be Used in Virginia? Virginia can use ALPRs in two ways, through active and passive collection. In active collection, police use ALPRs to identify vehicles already known to be relevant to an investigation. Passive collection is when ALPRs are used to collect and transfer raw data, whether relevant to a current investigation or not, into comprehensive databases for potential future use. The recommended policy allows for both forms of collection.
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Data Act regulates the government’s collection, maintenance, use and dissemination of personal information. It defines personal information as “information that describes, locates, or indexes anything about an individual.” Given that the ALPR may be used in locating an individual, “ALPR(s) generally meet the defined criteria of personal information and thus falls within the scope of the Data Act.” (Cuccinelli). ! 8 Tyson E. Hubbard, “Automatic License Plate Recognition: An Exciting New Law Enforcement Tool with Potentially Scary Consequences,” Syracuse Science and Technology Reporter, Syracuse University College of Law, 2008. 9 Anthony Abdalla, “Policy Issues Regarding Automated License Plate Recognition Technology,” South Pasadena Police Department, 2012. 10 Hubbard, “Automatic License Plate Recognition.” 11 Steve Hardy, “Police Say Use Of Plate Readers Not Intrusive,” Roanoke Times, July 28, 2013.
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! Passive collection is the area in which this proposal diverts from current Virginia policy. In a recent opinion, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli argued that the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practice Act (Data Act) prohibits the use of ALPRs for passive collection. The Data Act has exemptions for collecting data if it pertains to “investigations and intelligence gathering related to criminal activity.”12 Cuccinelli writes that active gathering is permissible because it “relates to immediate public safety threats.”13 Passive collection, however, is not classified as “criminal intelligence information” as it is not been “determined to be relevant to the identification of criminal activity,” and thus is not exempt.14 It is in Virginia’s best interest to extend the Data Act to allow ALPR use for passive intelligence gathering in the name of public safety. How Long Can Virginia Law Enforcement Keep ALPR Data? While the proposed policy enables ALPR use to help protect public safety, it places strict limitations on the creation of databases. Though Virginia citizens do not have an expectation to privacy with regards to license plates, they do have a reasonable expectation that they are not being tracked. In United States v. Jones, the United States Supreme Court found that police had violated the 4th amendment by attaching a GPS device to a car and tracking it for 28 days.15 In a concurring opinion for the Court, Justice Alito wrote, “Society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents would not secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a long period.”16 ALPR databases would give police an accurate picture of where vehicles have gone over a long period of time, even if there is no suspicion of illegal activity. Thus, databases with no limitations violate Virginian’s expectation that their movements are not catalogued. To prevent the creation of ALPR database, all gathered data must be deleted within 24 hours, unless it is relevant to an ongoing investigation. License plates images will be run against BOLO (“be on the lookout for”) lists twice, once upon being taken and then again before being deleted. A twenty-four hour delay is necessary because it can take some time for law enforcement agencies to upload wanted license plates into the system. The recommended policy is merely codifying existing VSP procedures. Finally, should VSP share data with other jurisdictions, they would lose the ability to oversee how the data are used, stored, or shared. To protect the privacy of Virginians, the proposed policy prohibits VSP from sharing the data with other jurisdictions, unless the other agency can show that the information is relevant to a clearly defined investigation.
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Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, Opinion in Accordance with § 2.2-505 of the Code of Virginia, February 13, 2013. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 “Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) in Iowa,” American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa. 16 Ibid.
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! Advantages and Disadvantages of Proposed Policy The proposed policy has the following advantages and disadvantages, which I will discuss in more detail below: ADVANTAGES • Makes police work more efficient and safer, helping law enforcement protect public safety • Decreases racial or ideological profiling • Ensures that Virginians are not tracked
DISADVANTAGES • Creates a Big Brother atmosphere • Could lead citizens to unnecessarily change their behaviors • System could be abused or hacked
Use of ALPRs: Pros and Cons Allowing for the use of ALPRs is the least controversial component of the proposed policy. This is due to the fact that ALPRs are already used ubiquitously throughout the state of Virginia by toll-collectors and red light cameras. Even the ACLU, a major critic of ALPRs, “doesn’t have a problem with ALPRs when [they are] used for… police enforcement purposes.”17 That being said, a disadvantage of the proposal is that allowing cameras to watch the movements of citizens may lead to a “Big Brother is watching” image of Virginia. Like many Americans, Virginians simply do not like the idea of the government spying on them. This can be seen in the fact that Virginia became the first state (and Charlottesville the first city) to pass anti-drone legislation.18 Another concern is that ALPRs can be used to target minorities. This was the case in New York City when the New York Police Department placed ALPRs near mosques.19 The proposed policy seeks to avoid such discriminatory practices by requiring that state agencies provide yearly reports of their ALPR use and practices. Such reports will increase public interest and assist watchdog groups in ensuring that ALPRs are not placed solely because of ethnic, religious, or racial demographics. The public safety benefits of ALPRs outweigh these concerns. There is an “inherent value” to being able to process and identify vehicles quickly since over 50-percent of all crime is related to a vehicle.20 Previously, officers were given long lists of vehicles (hot sheets) that could be as long
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Claire Gastañaga Guthrie, Executive Director ACLU of Virginia, American Civil Liberties of Virginia, Press Releases, July 18, 2013. 18 Jason Koebler, “Virginia Becomes First State to Pass Drone Regulation,” US News & World Report, News, February 5, 2013. 19 Sam Campbell, “Use of License Plate Tracking Is on the Rise. Maine Laws Reign It In,” American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, July 29, 2013. 20 “Automated License Plate Recognition: Investment Justifications and Purchasing Guide, Federal Signal Corporation, Federal Signal Public Safety Systems, August 2008.
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as 10-pages, each with six columns. Automating this process makes police work more efficient and effective, making ALPRs a vital tool in combating crime. Since February 2010, VSP has recovered 529 stolen vehicles, 751 stolen plates, and arrested 229 wanted persons based on ALPR hits.22 According to a 2010 George Mason University study, ALPRs also make police work safer.23 ALPRs free officers from the distraction of looking at license plates while they are in motion. Instead, officers can now focus on driving. Additionally, ALPRs free up radio communication. Rather than having to call in license plates, police radios can now be used solely for critical communications. Passive and Active Use of ALPRs: Pros and Cons The ACLU will criticize changing the existing policy to include passive collection. The ACLU insists that ALPRs only be used for active collection, i.e. when there is a “reasonable suspicion that a crime occurred before collecting information”. 24 According to the ACLU, passive collection amounts to “monitoring innocent people,” for which there is no legitimate need.25 They believe that once a license plate is scanned, if it comes back negative for a warrant or outstanding fine, then the data should be immediately deleted.26 Some argue that passive collection is also a violation of the Virginia Code. In §2.2-3800(C) of the Code of Virginia the State details several safeguards to personal privacy, including that “information shall not be collected unless the need for it has been clearly established in advanced.”27 Passive collection, by definition, occurs without clearly establishing need. Passive collection may also set a precedent that it is acceptable for the government to monitor the day-to-day activities of its citizens. When there is no regard for who is being monitored, everyone becomes a potential suspect. Such an atmosphere may lead individuals to unnecessarily change their behavior. In the same way that seeing a police car in your rearview mirror makes you slow down, even if you are driving within the speed limit, ALPRs may cause Virginians to alter their decision-making about where they go.28 Specifically, the International Association of Police Chiefs outlined this disadvantage stating that there is “a risk that individuals will become more cautious in the exercise of their protected rights of expression, protest, association, and political participation because they consider themselves to be under constant surveillance.” 29
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Michael Martinez, “Policing advocates defend use of high-tech license plate readers,” CNN, July 18, 2013. 22 Ryan Murphy, “License-Plate Readers: Is the Help Worth the Price of Privacy?” Daily Press, September 22, 2013. 23 Michael Martinez, “Policing Advocates Defend Use of High-Tech License Plate Readers,” CNN, July 18, 2013. 24 ACLU, “You Are Being Tracked.” 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Cuccinelli, “§ 2.2-505 Opinion.” 28 Mica Moore and Bennett Stein, “The chilling effects of license-plate location tracking,” ACLU, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, September 23, 2013. 29 Glenberg, “Virginia State Police Built Huge Database.”
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! The proposed policy, however, recognizes that many police leads occur ex post facto. Passive collection is an invaluable tool in developing leads in terrorism investigations and criminal cases. For example, if a crime is reported then police can look at license plates scanned near the crime scene to locate potential suspects, victims or witnesses. In addition to assisting police investigations, another advantage of passive collection is that it decreases racial profiling. While it may only be subconsciously, officers may run license plates of minority-owned vehicles more frequently. ALPRs do not scan based a license plate based on a driver’s appearance, in fact they scan all license plates without concern for who is in the car. Thus, by removing the officer from the process of running plates, ALPRs assist Virginia in maintaining law enforcement practices that are racially neutral. ALPR Storage Rules: Pros and Cons One of the main disadvantages in allowing VSP to store license plate images is that it can reveal extremely sensitive information about citizens. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit articulated in 2010: A person who knows all of another’s travel can deduce whether he is a weekly church goer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, [or] an outpatient receiving medical treatment.30 In 2012, the Minneapolis Star Tribute published a map of Mayor R.T. Ryback’s movements during the prior year, creating an accurate picture of where he lived and his acquaintances.31 They did so using 41 ALPR data points. A database that can allow for the mapping of an innocent individual’s movements goes against the expectations held by Virginians that they are not being tracked. There is a difference between seeing (no expectation to privacy- ALPRs permissible) and stalking someone (expectation of not being tracked- ALPR databases not permissible).32 The proposed policy takes such expectations into account by limiting the data to a 24-hour holding period if is not relevant to a criminal investigation. Databases, even ones limited to short time frames, also have the disadvantage that those with access to the records can misuse them. For example, police officers could use a database to stalk a romantic partner, identify a reporter’s confidential sources, or find someone who went to a political rally, gun store, gay bar, or abortion clinic.33 In Ohio, for example, 30,000 police officers and court employees have access to driver’s license images in databases without oversight or audit controls.34 To ensure against potential abuses, the proposed policy entails stringent access rules. Only state employees who have been trained can access such records and agencies are required to log who accesses the database.
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ACLU, “You Are Being Tracked.” Michael Martinez, “Policing advocates defend use of high-tech license plate readers,” CNN, July 18, 2013. 32 Kevin McArthur, “ALPR- Canada’s Big Brother? The Federal Data Base That’s Keeping Tabs on Vancouver,” Unrest.ca, June 14, 2006. 33 Hardy, “Not Intrusive.” 34 Madison Ruppert, “Ohio Facial Recognition Database Can Be Accessed By 30,000 Police Officers, Others Without Oversight,” End the Lie, September 23, 2013. 31
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! Not only do databases create security risks from law enforcement officers overstepping their authority, but hackers also pose a risk. Only months ago the Los Angeles County Police and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Departments were hacked. 35 Hackers located the cell phone numbers, addresses, and even explicit photos of police officers and then posted them online for public access. Virginia agencies that use ALPRs must remain vigilant of these potential threats and ensure that proper security systems are in place. VSP may feel that the 24-hour time period is too narrow. Crimes are not always reported within a 24-hour time period. Thus, deleting data may make it more challenging to find investigative leads. The advantage of the proposed policy, however, is that it balances law enforcement needs (letting them use ALPRs passively) with legitimate privacy concerns of Virginians (insisting data be deleted after 24 hours) without favoring either. Finally, the amended policy limits ALPR use to law enforcement. Privately owned ALPR databases have emerged in some states.36 Regulating and monitoring these databases presents many challenges. The proposed policy is based on the justification that there are public safety reasons for passively using ALPRs and allowing for data to be searched for 24 hours. Private companies, however, do not have the same public safety mandate and thus are not able to use such justifications. By restricting ALPRs to legitimate law enforcement purposes the policy includes greater protections for Virginians’ privacy. Conclusion ALPRs are essential law enforcement tools that make police work faster, safer, and more effective. By allowing for their use, the proposed amendment to the Data Act assists in protecting public safety in Virginia. Importantly, the policy also protects the privacy of Virginians. It includes procedural safeguards such as access limitations as well as maximum 24-hour holding period to prevent abuses of the system. ! Natasha Reese-McLaughlin was born and raised outside Washington, DC. A 2009 graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Natasha earned a dual degree in International Affairs and Latin American Studies. After graduation, she worked at Conservation International where she assisted in the development of sustainable coffee and energy projects in Latin America and Africa. Natasha received her Master in Public Policy from the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in 2014. During her time at Batten she interned with the Food Policy Research Institute evaluating a poverty reduction program in Tanzania.
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Simone Wilson, “'Anonymous' Hacks Into L.A. County Police and Sheriff Databases; Posts Contact Info, Nude Pics,” LAWeekly, February 23, 2013. ! 36!ACLU, “You Are Being Tracked.”!
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US Relations with Cuba Alan Safferson
Following the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the rise of Fidel Castro’s communist government, relations between the United States and Cuba quickly deteriorated. US policymakers were particularly incensed by Cuba’s land reforms and nationalization of US companies on the island. Beginning in 1960, the Eisenhower administration and Congress began increasing trade restrictions on Cuba through a combination of executive orders and congressional legislation. In 1961, the United States officially closed its embassy in Havana and withdrew recognition of the island nation. In October of that year, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act, making all aid to Cuba illegal, and authorizing the president to impose a full trade embargo. In 2006, Fidel Castro ceded authority to his brother, Raul, and in 2008, Raul officially succeeded Fidel as President of Cuba. The ascension of Raul Castro to power raised hopes in both the United States and Cuba for improved relations. 1 Though Cuba has made some significant economic reforms in recent years, a 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report highlights that the country still “regularly ranks at the bottom of most internationally recognized rankings on political and economic liberty.”2 Cuba has been accused of murdering human rights activists, and is currently holding American USAID contractor Alan Gross in prison on charges of subversive political activity.3 The detention of Mr. Gross continues to inflame US relations with Cuba, despite multiple efforts to secure his release. The United States also lists Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, although this is not a reflection of significant Cuban involvement in terrorism. According to the State Department’s 2013 Country Reports on Terrorism, “There [is] no indication that the Cuban government provided weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups.” Critics of the US embargo on Cuba point to the inconsistencies between US policy towards Cuba and broader foreign policy. They question why the United States still maintains sanctions against the island, while openly trading with other communist governments it opposed during the Cold War such as China and Vietnam. This distinguishes US policy towards Cuba from US relationships with other communist governments. In fact, President Nixon and his predecessors eased trade restrictions against China in part due to the argument that trade would hasten democratic reforms. Such action is clearly inconsistent with policy towards Cuba.
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Marifeli Pérez-Stable and Velasco Ana Covarrubias, The United States and Cuba: Intimate Enemies (New York: Routledge, 2011), 104. 2 Committee on Foreign Relations, “Changing Cuba Policy in the United States National Interest: Staff Trip Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, First Session, February 23, 2009,” 111th Cong., 1st sess. S. Rept. Washington (U.S. G.P.O., 2009), 4. 3 Rosa María Payá Acevedo, "What Cuba Does to Its Own People," New York Daily News, accessed April 25, 2013, http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/cuba-people-article-1.1326466.
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! History of Congressional Involvement in Cuba Policy Congress has consistently played a major role in US foreign policy towards Cuba by tightening various trade, travel, and financial restrictions in response to changing political conditions. Though the executive branch has generally had more flexibility in altering the details of the restrictions, Congress has asserted its authority on the subject through a variety of legislation outlining the framework for US policy towards Cuba. In 1992, Congressman Robert Torricelli introduced the Cuban Democracy Act, which eventually passed Congress and was signed by President Bush. The law—which solidified many of the practices undertaken by previous administrations—banned overseas subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Cuba. It also prevented US citizens from traveling to Cuba or sending remittances to the nation.4 Special interest groups proved key in rallying support for the Cuban Democracy Act. The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF)—which will be discussed in more detail—leveraged the politically active Cuban–American population in south Florida towards this end. In 1996, following legislative efforts led by Republicans Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Dan Burton of Indiana, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, which significantly tightened the embargo on Cuba by sanctioning foreign corporations that conduct business with Cuba. Initially, the Helms-Burton Act was held up and tabled in the Senate by a Democratic filibuster, but headline-grabbing news put the measure back on the table months later after Cuban military jets shot down two private planes flown by a Miami-based anti-Castro organization, killing the two pilots.5 This event made it politically untenable for Democrats to continue opposing the bill, resulting in a 74-22 vote in the Senate. The events leading to the passage of the Helms-Burton Act highlight the influence of short-term crises on Cuba policy. In 2000, spurred by agricultural interests, Congress adjusted the trade embargo by passing the Trade Sanction Reform and Export Enhancement Act. The Act allowed for the export of some specified agricultural and medical products to Cuba by American companies. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had jurisdiction over the bill, but won passage by attaching it as a rider to the fiscal year 2001 Agricultural Appropriations Bill.6 Agricultural interests proved critical to the passage of the Trade Sanction Reform and Export Enhancement Act. Numerous organizations— including the National Association of Wheat Growers, National Association of Barley Growers, National Corn Growers Association, the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation, and countless others—lobbied on behalf of the bill because it would boost industry revenue by eliminating restrictions on agricultural exports.7 The George W. Bush administration enforced the embargo strongly. In 2002, Bush supported congressional Republicans by blocking efforts aimed at loosening the embargo.8 In contrast to President Bush, President Obama has significantly eased some restrictions on Cuba through
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S. 2918, 102 Cong. (U.S. G.P.O., 1992).
Congressional Record, V. 146, Pt. 16, October 13, 2000, 23,110. Ibid. 8 Perez-Stable and Covarrubias, The United States and Cuba, 87. 7
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Executive Order. Obama has eliminated all restrictions on remittances to Cuba and family travel.9 However, the President has maintained economic sanctions against Cuba as well as the prohibition on general US citizen travel to the island. In 2009, there was a heated debate in Congress over language included in an omnibus appropriations bill that further eased Cuba travel and trade restrictions.10 Notably, Democratic Senator Menendez filibustered the appropriations bill because of his staunch opposition to a change in Cuba policy. His filibuster of the omnibus spending bill, which carried language easing travel and trade restrictions, was significant because of his defiance of Democratic leadership in favor of anti-Castro special interests. In 2010, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson and Congressman Jerry Moran introduced the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, and successfully garnered the support of 81 cosponsors. 11 Over 130 organizations representing a variety of business interests, agricultural interests, and foreign policy think tanks supported the bill. Though the Agricultural Committee voted to send the bill to the floor, the measure eventually died when the House Financial Services Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee—who were also given jurisdiction over the bill—did not report the bill out of committee.12 Current Proposals There are a number of proposed bills in congressional committees that would eliminate or ease sanctions on Cuba. The United States-Cuba Normalization Act is the most recent bill, introduced by Congressman Bobby Rush of Illinois in May 2013. The bill would completely remove restrictions on Cuba. At the time of publication, the bill has not been reported out of committee. Similarly, H.R. 214 was introduced in January by Congressman Serrano of New York and was referred to seven different committees in the House including Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, Oversight and Government Reform Judiciary, and Agriculture. This bill lifts the Cuba embargo by amending the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Furthermore, in February Congressman Rangel of New York introduced three complementary bills that would lift trade and travel, and promote US agricultural exports. H.R 872—the Free Trade with Cuba Act—was subsequently referred to the same seven House committees as Serrano’s bill. The bill would repeal all trade sanctions against Cuba. Rangel gained the support of 11 Democratic co-sponsors and introduced a matching bill—H.R. 871—the Export Freedom to Cuba Act of 2013, which would lift all travel restrictions relating to Cuba. The bill was referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Additionally, H.R. 873—the Promoting American Agricultural and Medical Exports to Cuba Act of 2013—was referred to Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means, Judiciary, Agriculture, and Financial Services. In January, Congressman Serrano introduced H.R. 215, which would make it easier for Cubans to come play professional baseball in the United States.
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Mark P. Sullivan, "Cuba: U.S. Policy and Issues for the 113th Congress," Congressional Research Service, accessed June 2014, http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43024.pdf. 10 Stephanie Hanson, "U.S.-Cuba Relations," Council on Foreign Relations, accessed January 31, 2013, http://www.cfr.org/cuba/us-cuba-relations/p11113. 11 H.R. 4645, 111th Cong., (U.S. G.P.O., 2010). 12 Ibid.
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! In examining recent proposals for easing Cuba sanctions, it is apparent that there is a small but committed contingent in the House of Representatives dedicated to the issue. This group is composed of, almost exclusively, Democrats. Congressmen Charlie Rangel and Jose Serrano are key leaders on the subject. Many of the bills put forward by this anti-embargo group in the House have been introduced numerous times during prior years. In almost every case the bills proposing an end to trade sanctions on Cuba never make it out of committee due to either opposition from the Chairman or from House and Senate leadership. Opposition and Interest Groups In the early 1980s, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) began to assert itself as a powerful interest group holding sway over US policy towards Cuba. CANF—a key player in today’s political debate on Cuba policy—modeled itself after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).13 In fact, CANF staff received direct training from AIPAC on how to make the Cuba issue consequential in US domestic politics and how to open the issue to pressure from special interest groups. 14 During this same time period, the naturalization rate for Cuban exiles rose, and the community—mostly based in Miami—“learned to parlay its economic power into the political arena.”15 Over the years, CANF has been active in lobbying members of Congress to support hawkish policy against Cuba. The organization donates funds to congressman who advocate tough policies on the issue.16 CANF’s lobbying efforts have resulted in a number of legislative successes. CANF strongly supported a bill in 1984 that set up Radio Marti—a government sponsored radio station that broadcasts anti-Castro propaganda into Cuba. Even more notably, CANF played a major role during the passage of the Cuban Democracy Act in 1992, as well as the Helms-Burton Act in 1996. Today, CANF operates throughout the United States by rallying anti-Castro supporters and raising money for the cause. During the 2012 election cycle, the US-Cuba Democracy PAC—run by CANF—donated $419,000 to 113 members of Congress. 17 The concentration of Cuban Americans in Florida—traditionally a battleground state in presidential elections—poses a significant obstacle for advocates of reform. The Cuban community has historically been very politically active, making consideration of their views critical for politicians with national ambitions. A number of key congressmen—particularly those representing Florida—pose significant roadblocks to the easing of sanctions. The Cuban Democracy Caucus—whose 18 members are generally on the forefront of fighting attempts to liberalize relations with Cuba—also poses an important obstacle.
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Perez-Stable and Covarrubias, The United States and Cuba, 20. Patrick J. Haney and Walt Vanderbush, "The Role of Ethnic Interest Groups in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Case of the Cuban American National Foundation," International Studies Quarterly 43.2 (1999): 349. 15 Perez-Stable and Covarrubias, The United States and Cuba, 20. 16 Ibid., 21. 17 "US-Cuba Democracy PAC," Center for Responsive Politics, accessed September 3, 2014, https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00387720. 14
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! Democratic Senator Menendez—Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee— represents the most powerful figure opposing an easing of sanctions against Cuba. Born to Cuban parents, Menendez is a staunch anti-Castro advocate and opposes any lifting of the embargo. Senator Menendez’s power over the Foreign Relations Committee—which typically has jurisdiction over bills dealing with Cuba—means that at the committee level he can kill any bill easing sanctions. In effect, Menendez alone has the power to prevent any anti-embargo legislation from reaching the floor of Congress. Additionally, Cuban American Senator and 2016 presidential hopeful Marco Rubio staunchly opposes any easing of sanctions and would be a key roadblock towards ending the embargo. His prominent role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee could compliment the influence of Senator Menendez and block liberalization efforts. During an interview, the Senator stated he would only support such measures when Cuba begins to open up its repressive political system. Rubio also affirmed his opinion that the embargo allows the United States an important point of leverage in promoting democratic reform in Cuba.18 Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, who represents a district in Miami-Dade County— also strongly opposes the easing of sanctions on Cuba. Congressman Diaz-Balart is a member of the Appropriations Committee and sits on the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, giving him a voice in the foreign policy debate. Congresswoman Ileana RosLehtinen, the first Cuban American elected to Congress, has also staunchly opposed the lessening of restrictions on Cuba throughout her long tenure on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She chaired the committee between 2011 and 2013, giving her a strong voice today on a body that has jurisdiction over bills dealing with Cuba policy. Finally, Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz represents a district in Florida and is strongly pro-embargo. Wasserman Schultz is the current head of the Democratic National Committee, giving her some influence to dissuade Democratic colleagues in Congress from supporting reform measures. Political Outlook In a 2011 poll of Cuban Americans conducted by the Cuban Research Institute, 44 percent of respondents said they oppose continuing the US embargo on Cuba. Furthermore, 65 percent of respondents said they either strongly or mostly favor allowing US companies to export food to Cuba.19 This indicates that opposition to a bill dealing solely with agricultural exports may be more limited. Overall, these numbers dispel the notion of a Cuban American community united around opposing any easing of restrictions on Cuba. Opinion within the Cuban American community has become more accepting over time of openings towards Cuba. Further underscoring this point is another poll conducted in 2008 by the University of Miami. The poll asked Cuban Americans to rank order what issues most influenced their vote in that year’s presidential election. The results of the poll showed US policy towards Cuba consistently in last place behind the Iraq war, the economy, healthcare and the cost of education.20
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"Exclusive Human Events Interview with Marco Rubio," Human Events, accessed May 7, 2010, http://humanevents.com/2010/05/07/exclusive-human-events-interview-with-marco-rubio/. 19 "FIU Cuba Poll," Cuban Research Institute, accessed September 3, 2014, https://cri.fiu.edu/research/cuba-poll/2011-cuba-poll.pdf 20 Mike Lillis, "DNC Boss, President at Odds on Cuba Policy," The Hill, July 6, 2011, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/169763-dnc-boss-president-at-odds-on-cuba.
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! The Cuban American community in Florida—which has traditionally voted strongly Republican—also appears to be shifting towards the Democratic Party. Exit polls from the 2012 presidential election showed that Barack Obama received almost half of the Cuban American community’s vote in Florida.21 Though the Republican Party still holds the advantage, political attitudes have shifted considerably in recent years. In the 2000 election, 75 percent of Cubans in Florida voted for George W. Bush. Cuban Americans becoming less reliably Republican means that the community may be voting more on social and economic issues, rather than on policy towards Cuba. This suggests that in the coming years there will likely be less strident proembargo pressure on Washington lawmakers. Recommendation A realistic course of action that would bring the United States closer towards a complete normalization of trade relations with Cuba would involve lifting a number of restrictions on American industries seeking to export to Cuba. A bill containing provisions similar to parts of the failed 2010 Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act would significantly ease trade restrictions for US agricultural companies seeking to export to Cuba, while maintaining the prohibition on Cuban imports into the US. The bill would further expand the variety of agricultural products permitted for export, as well as remove important financial and banking restrictions that have effectively made US agriculture less competitive in Cuba. Due to political opposition, this bill does not lift the travel ban on US citizens visiting Cuba. Although a complete removal of the embargo would be the most desirable outcome from a business perspective, significant political obstacles remain. However, due to the changing voting behavior of the Cuban-American population, incremental easing of restrictions on Cuba today could lead the way for a complete lifting of the embargo in the not so distant future as opposition from the Cuban-American community dissipates. In pushing for the loosening of restrictions on agricultural exports to Cuba, it will be critically important to bring together a wide coalition that includes extensive representation from business interests. This will give credibility to the probusiness frame, attracting Republicans to a position that has been almost exclusively Democratic to date. The changing politics of the Cuban-American community and the power of business interests will be key to reforming this outdated and costly policy. Making it easier for US agricultural companies to do business in Cuba would help regain a portion of the estimated $1.2 billion in foregone agricultural revenue due to the Cuba embargo and could pave the way for a complete lifting of the embargo. ! Alan graduated from the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in 2014 after also completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia in 2013. A native of Fairfax, Virginia, Alan’s areas of focus include U.S. foreign policy and national security. Following his graduation from the Batten School, Alan spent the summer in Morocco improving his Arabic while studying as part of the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship program.
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Juan Tamayo, "Did Obama or Romney Win the Cuban-American Vote?" The Miami Herald, accessed November 15, 2013, http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/12/3094299/winner-of-cuban-americanvote.html.