Campaign Promises,Democratic Governance,and Environmental Policy in the U.S. Congress

One important criterion for assessing the quality of democratic governance is the extent to which the policy process effectively translates citizen preferences into collective choices. Several scholars have observed a discrepancy between citizen preferences for strong environmental protection and weak policies adopted in the United States, indicating that the United States may fall short on this criterion. We examine one possible mechanism contributing to this discrepancy—legislator defection from campaign promises. Our data indicate that legislators in the U.S. Congress routinely defect from their campaign promises in environmental protection, undermining the link between citizen preferences and policy choice. We also find that legislators are much more likely to defect from pro‐environmental campaign promises, which moves government policy toward less stringent environmental programs. Finally, the propensity of legislators to defect from their campaign promises is systematic, with defection affected by partisanship, constituency influence, the influence of the majority party, and the likely consequences of defection for policy choice. These findings contribute empirical evidence relevant to the “mandate theory” perspective on how citizen preferences are translated into collective choices through the policy process. These findings may also complement research in comparative politics concluding that legislatures selected through single member districts adopt less stringent environmental policies than do legislatures chosen via proportional representation in that the mechanism for this effect may go through legislator defection from campaign promises.     

Governance and Performance: Theory-Based Evidence from U.S. Coast Guard Inspections

Law enforcement by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) is characterized by soft penalties for safety violations, low incidence of penalties relative to the number of violations, and substantial resources devoted to inspections of vessels. Under what conditions can such an enforcement strategy be effective? And is it? This article seeks answers to these two questions. Harrington's (1988 ) model is motivated by such facts about U.S. regulation in general, and provides an answer to the first question via targeting of good and poor performers. The model generates hypotheses about optimal regulation in the context of pollution prevention activities of the USCG. In order to answer the second question, an organization‐level panel data set consisting of thousands of U.S. flag tank barges is constructed and those hypotheses tested. A count model that controls for vessel heterogeneity yields mixed evidence. If USCG inspections are considered exogenous variables (as the theory presumes), they appear to prevent pollution spills. But if inspections are endogenous and respond to previous spills, then correcting for endogeneity reverses the earlier result. In addition, violations are found to be good predictors of pollution occurrences, suggesting that inspections are not as effective as they could be. Targeting, as in Harrington's model, therefore appears to be incomplete, and the findings suggest that more complete targeting could increase performance. An interesting finding is that stronger penalties could increase performance.     

Technical Inefficiency and Public Capital in U.S. States: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

This paper estimates a translog stochastic frontier production function in the analysis of all 48 contiguous U.S. states in the period 1970–1983, to attempt to measure and explain changes in technical efficiency. The model allows technical inefficiency to vary over time, and inefficiency effects to be a function of a set of explanatory variables in which the level and composition of public capital plays an important role. Results indicate that U.S. state inefficiency levels are significantly and positively correlated with the ratio of public capital to private capital. The proportion of public capital devoted to highways is negatively correlated with technical inefficiency, suggesting that not only the level but also the composition of public capital influences state efficiency.     

Market Rules and Spatial Outcomes: Insights from the Corporate Restructuring of U.S. Food Retailing

In this paper a study of the corporate restructuring of the U.S. food retail industry, during and following the period of regulatory relaxation and high-leverage capital transformations of the 1980s, is used to interrogate the complex relationships between market regulation, investment regimes, corporate strategies, and spatial outcomes. It is shown that changes in the “rules” governing investment and competition in the United States in the 1980s triggered countervailing spatial processes in the food retail industry. Those processes took more than a decade to work themselves through, but by the late 1990s a radically altered corporate landscape was beginning to emerge. In particular, consolidation of the industry had finally gained momentum–creating an industry whose leading firms are likely by 2002 to have a market share double the level of the early 1990s. The paper concludes by considering the insights which a consideration of corporate restructuring and regulation in this U.S. industry offers for some important areas of conceptual debate in economic geography. In particular, it is argued that industries in which capital structure transformations of the firm must be confronted and treated as a central issue have an intrinsic, but until recently neglected, importance in theoretical debate in the discipline.     

The United States and Bahrain: Interpreting the Differentiated U.S. Responses to the Arab Spring

We examine how the United States' response to the situation in Bahrain can be differentiated from that in Libya and Egypt based on a comparative content analysis of the U.S. administration's press releases, remarks, and interviews during the first three months of the Arab Spring movement. Our findings indicate that although the level and duration of violence were comparable, the U.S. government response was strikingly different with the support given to the Bahraini government, in contrast to the critical stances adopted towards Libya and Egypt. We explain how the United States' lack of political incentive to act and concerted support by its allies were influential factors for the United States' differentiated policy during the Arab Spring.     

The Differential Regional Effects of Monetary Policy: Evidence from the U.S. States

In this paper we use time-series techniques to examine whether monetary policy had symmetric effects across U.S. states during the 1958:1–1992:4 period. Impulse response functions from estimated structural vector autoregression models reveal differences in policy responses, which in some cases are substantial. We provide evidence on the reasons for the measured cross-state differential policy responses. The size of a state's response is significantly related to industry-mix variables, providing evidence of an interest rate channel for monetary policy, although the state-level data offer no support for recently advanced credit-channel theories.     

What are the Limits of Social Inclusion? Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Governance in Canada and the United States

ABSTRACT

Contemporary debates about poverty and its mitigation often invoke the idea of social inclusion: the effort to increase the capacities and opportunities of disadvantaged populations to participate more fully in the economy, polity, and institutions of developed societies. While practical outcomes have been inconsistent, this idea has been prominent in the social policies of both Canada and the United States. Both generally see themselves as liberal democracies committed to building socially inclusive societies, and both have adopted policies in support of that goal. However, we argue in this article that social inclusion, as presently conceived, fails to comprehend or address the distinctive situation of Indigenous peoples in both of these countries. Our critique focuses on four aspects of social inclusion as applied to Indigenous peoples: the external conception of needs, the individualization of both problems and solutions, the favoring of distributional politics over positional politics, and the conditionality of inclusion. We argue that both Canada and the United States need to reconceive social inclusion in ways that address these issues and that a more capacious conception of federalism may hold the key.     

Organizing European Labour: Governance, Production, Trade Unions and the Question of Scale

This paper addresses two main debates: the recent geographical literature on trade union strategy and structure, and contemporary accounts of European labour market governance. Geographers have begun to take notice of organized labour just as it has faced a series of unprecedented challenges, which are partly derived from ongoing changes in the organization of production. In interpreting these debates I focus on the process of scaling – the ways in which the politics of labour market governance are constituted in, and are at the same time constitutive of, one geographical scale or another. These issues are explored through two key recent developments: the changing status of the European Trade Union Confederation, and the creation of European Works Councils. The ETUC and EWCs are particularly significant because they pose a challenge to existing arrangements, and potentially enable a re-configuration of the relation between capital and labour at different scales. I conclude that further exploration of European labour geography could re-connect the diversity of forms of organization of production with the scope and potential of trade union strategy; and that thinking in terms of scale is useful because it highlights the significance of both political and relational issues.     

Congress,the Presidency,and U.S. Foreign Policy

Gibson, Martha L. Conflict Amid Consensus in American Trade Policy. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000. Pp. 213. $55.00 hardbound; $17.95 softbound.

Henehan, Marie T. Foreign Policy and Congress: An International Relations Perspective. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Pp. 248. $49.50 hardbound.

Brands, H.W. The Foreign Policies of Lyndon Johnson: Beyond Vietnam. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 1999. Pp. 194. $29 95 hardbound.

McNamara, Robert S., James G. Blight, and Robert K. Brigham, with Thomas J. Biersteker and Herbert Y. Schandler. Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy. New York, NY: Public Affairs, 1999. Pp. 512. $27.50 hardbound; $17.00 softbound.     

Transitions in U.S. Higher Education: implications for geography learning

In the United States, higher education institutions and structures governing higher education are going through dramatic change. The implications of new technology and changing modes of course structure, and evolving federal and state policies have the potential for significant impact on higher education. The historic federal mandates regarding university systems, including land-grants, and renewal of the U.S. Higher Education Act, for example, have impacts related to higher education regulations, performance expectations, accreditation, and student success. In addition, there are new research questions related to student learning. Several of the key themes impacting higher education also have implications and expectations for university geography programs. Geographers and geography programs in many universities are contributing toward addressing these changes in ways that contribute toward programs and universities that are more committed to new learning paradigms, as well as curricula that enhance engagement, concepts of sustainability, innovation, entrepreneurship, and efforts at more integrated scholarship, among others.     

Race, Protest, and Public Space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the U.S. City

Since the early 1990s, Henri Lefebvre's theory of the social production of space has become widely used by Anglophone academics to understand contemporary urban processes in the Western world. This article argues that care must be taken in transporting Lefbevre's theoretical framework from one context to another. When applied in places like U.S. cities, it must be contextualized in relation to significant sociospatial processes, especially race. It is also argued that when the racialized geographies of U.S. cities are taken into account, Lefebvre's work—with its focus on the role representation plays in the production of space—aids our understanding of contemporary urban processes. The article develops this argument through an engagement with the racialized public spaces in and around downtown Lexington, Kentucky. The killing of an African-American teenager by a White police officer and the ensuing violence and commentary, especially two editorial cartoons, provide the opportunity to contextualize Lefebvre's theory. Furthermore, the case allows us to understand the role racialized representations of space play into the construction of urban geographies. The paper concludes by emphasizing the role of the body in Lefebvre's understanding of space and suggests that his twin notions of "the right to the city" and "the right to difference" hold out hope for the grassroots development of antiracist urban public spaces.     

Income Convergence across U.S. States: An Analysis Using Measures of Concordance and Discordance*

Abstract. This paper presents methods to analyze convergence in cross‐sectional data collected over time using distribution free statistics that are not sensitive to the magnitudes involved. Measures of concordance and discordance are employed in the empirical analysis of real personal income per capita for 48 U.S. States over the period 1929–2002. Although most States are converging with each other, some are converging faster than others. The methods used have the flexibility to focus on specific characteristics such as convergence in absolute differences or convergence in the ratio of rewards. The methods may also be used to consider convergence without switching and additionally be applied to other features such as the percentiles of the distributions.     

JFK, Democracy, and U.S. Security Policy in the Americas

Book reviewed in this article:
Stephen G. Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America     

New World States and Empires: Politics, Religion, and Urbanism

The past decade has seen a veritable explosion in archaeological research on complex societies in Latin America. In 1993, Smith published an overview of research to that date; this article is one of two bringing that summary up to the present. Our first article, New World states and empires: Economic and social organization (Smith and Schreiber, 2005), dealt with issues regarding economic and social organization. The present article tackles political organization and dynamics, religion, urbanism, and settlement patterns. We also review recent research in the context of various theoretical perspectives, some traditional, some more contemporary, including approaches to history and process, cultural evolution, agency-based models, linguistic prehistory, migration theory, and the relationship between environmental change and cultural events. Our discussion blends empirical findings, methodological advances, and theoretical perspectives.     

Cultivating belonging: refugees,urban gardens,and placemaking in the Midwest,U.S.A.

In the aftermath of failed urban renewal projects and the decline of central cities, community gardens have become increasingly popular in urban planning, public health, and environmental circles. However, gardens still occupy a tenuous and contradictory position in the city. While urban gardens are bounded spaces, they are also dynamic places where different understandings of (agri)culture, land use, and belonging are enacted and contested. In this paper, we identify three distinct ways in which gardens in a small Midwestern city are used and experienced by refugee gardeners and local officials: the material garden, the imagined garden, and the community’s garden. The material garden, embodied in the biophysical aspects of the soil, seeds, and resources needed to cultivate plants, shapes what can grow in the garden and the transformations by refugee agricultural practices. While planners tend to see urban gardens as temporary spaces that can promote limited pathways of migrant incorporation, gardeners practice, and imagine gardening differently through social, cultural, and economic interactions. We argue that these practices challenge traditional understandings of nature and urban planning, and can promote inclusive understandings of agriculture, cities, and sustainability, embodied in the ideal of the community’s garden.