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The past year has been one of intense engagement in U.S -India relations with several high-level visits exchanged and working-level dialogues held between the two countries. Most recently, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met at the Paris climate change summit and Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will visit the United States to discuss the bilateral defense relationship.

On December 11, The India Project at Brookings hosted a conversation with U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma to reflect on developments in U.S.-India relations in 2015. He also discussed the recent high-level engagements on defense policy and climate change, as well as the road ahead for the bilateral relationship. Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project and fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings moderated the discussion. Bruce Jones, vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings provided introductory remarks.

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• U.S.–India relations: A conversation with U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma

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• U.S.–India relations: A conversation with U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma

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Visiting Fellow Michael P. McDonald joins Kojo Nnamdi and guests to discuss congressional redistricting and other pressing election reform issues.

Listen to the interview »

Executive Summary

In the concluding chapter of Red and Blue Nation? Consequences and Correction of America’s Polarized Politics (Brookings Press, 2007), Pietro S. Nivola and William A. Galston lay out a series of changes aimed at “depolarizing” the politics of the United States. One of their recommendations calls on the states to introduce fundamental changes to the process of redistricting congressional electoral districts. A handful of states have already established redistricting commissions, so the first steps have been taken in reforming one of the most important pillars of the electoral process.

This paper explores the possibility that the United States could build on those initial moves. Additionally, would it be possible to “import” the Canadian model of independent electoral boundary redistricting commissions? For the first 100 years of Canadian history redistricting seats in the federal House of Commons followed a pattern familiar to Americans. It was a process firmly under the control of the politicians, and the results reflected that. Wide disparities in population size were a tell-tale sign of the extent to which Canada’s parliamentary districts were gerrymandered.

Starting at the provincial level in the 1950s, partisan redistricting eventually gave way in all jurisdictions to nonpartisan commissions. How that change came about and why the Canadian commission-directed redistricting commends itself to Americans concerned about the highly politicized state of redistricting in the United States are the subjects of this study.

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The special election in California and the beginning of the recall process in Wisconsin are only the start of what promises to a be a hyper-partisan election. On July 13, Thomas Mann answered your questions on the new forces at work in the political landscape, in a live web chat moderated by POLITICO Senior Editor David Mark.

The transcript of this chat follows.

David Mark: Welcome to the chat, let's get started.

12:30 Comment From Brooke: Were you surprised by the results of California's special election?

12:32 Tom Mann: No, Hahn's 10 point victory was expected. This was less than the natural Democratic strength of the district and reflected the generously self-funded opposition campaign.

12:32 Comment From Travis: What's the significance of that CA seat remaining Democrat?

12:34 Tom Mann: Not much in the way of national significance. If anything, it's a step back for the Democrats, who in the last, NY special in a Republican district, pulled off a genuine upset, running substantially ahead of Obama and the party registration. But the Democrats avoided an upset in California, which would have been discouraging and distracting to them.

12:34 Comment From Yan: Can you explain what's going on in Wisconsin?

12:39 Tom Mann: No!! It's been a crazy year in my home state. Yesterday's six elections were not for real. They had fake Democratic candidates challenging the slated Democrats solely to delay the actual recall elections by a month. All of the "real" Democrats won and three or four of them have a good chance to defeat the incumbent Republican state senators on August. Next week on July 19 three Democratic incumbents will be on the ballot -- two facing fake candidates but one facing a Republican challenger. The latter is important, as are the August 16 elections featuring the other two Democratic incumbents. Bottom line-- Democrats need a net gain of three seats to take control of the State Senate and slow Governor Walker's agenda. Turnout was relatively high yesterday and control of the State Senate is genuinely up for grabs.

12:39 David Mark: Realizing that the lines aren't final, what's your sense about how effective the independent California redistricting commission has been in drawing districts that are potentially more competitive?

12:42 Tom Mann: It appears they have been successful in increasing the number of competitive districts. At the same time, they have boosted Democratic prospects for a seat gain and disappointed Hispanics who feel that their population growth in the state has not been reflected in the Commission's maps. I suspect some significant revision in the plans that are finally released by the Commission and if necessary, an appeal to the courts.

12:42 Comment From Henry: What do you expect from the next election cycle?

12:47 Tom Mann: I believe the presidency and control of both House and Senate are up for grabs. It will be a very high stakes election with huge warchests. (Obama and the DNC together raised $86 million in the second quarter, which dwarfs what the Republican candidates combined have raised.) But both parties will be well-funded in the presidential and congressional races. At this point, I'd say Obama probably has the best prospect of winning; same is true of Republicans taking the Senate and holding the House. But it is early; the economic climate remains volatile; and events could overwhelm the present situation.

12:47 Comment From Danny (MD): What kind of a role do you see Super PACs playing in the next round of elections?

12:50 Tom Mann: The SuperPacs and their affiliated 501c organizations will be major players in the 2012 elections. Disclosure of donors will continue to diminish and large corporate and individual contributions will support extensive independent spending campaigns. Democrats have decided to follow the Republicans rather than fight them on campaign finance reform.

12:50 Comment From Danny (MD):What do you think about Stephen Colbert's Super PAC?

12:52 Tom Mann: Colbert is being Colbert. With his trusted legal advisor Trevor Potter, he is creating the PAC and testing the rules to educate the public about the inadequacy of campaign finance law and regulation. Political satire may be one of the more effective means of pushing political reform.

12:52 Comment From Bill in Va.: Beyond the immediate results of elections in California and Wisconsin, there are new laws in a lot of swing states that will seem to make it harder for certain people to cast their vote. Will these laws stand, or be challenged, and can they have an impact in the 2012 outcome?

12:56 Tom Mann: Election law in the States has sadly become yet another tool of partisan war. New voter ID laws have been passed in states controlled by Republicans but not in the others. I expect Democrats will gear up at the grassroots level to try to contest any efforts to deny access to the ballot of any of their legitimate voters. It all makes one yearn for the Australian compulsory voting system. Giving parties the incentive to depress turnout is downright depressing.

12:57 Comment From Ron: Just to step back from the specifics for a moment, how do you explain the very nasty tone of our politics these days...and what will it take to return some civility to the process?

1:00 Tom Mann: I'm not looking for civility any time soon. The ideological polarization of the parties and the partisan team play that now characterizes our politics and governance is deeply rooted in American society and reinforced by the new media. The populist Tea Party, with its certainty and righteous indignation, has been embraced by the Republicans in Washington and makes it almost impossible for politicians on opposite sides of the aisle to treat one another respectfully and work toward compromise.

1:00 David Mark: Thanks for the chat, everybody.

One year from the 2014 midterm congressional elections, the Center for Effective Public Management will host a panel previewing those races. Joining CEPM scholars Elaine Kamarck and John Hudak are Charlie Cook (Cook Political Report), Susan Page (USA Today), and Robert Boatright (Clark University).

Join us at 10AM for a live webcast of the event. We will discuss the congressional elections, gubernatorial races, and what the implications are for policymaking in the coming years.

We welcome questions via Twitter using the hashtag #2014Midterms.

INTRODUCTION

Elections that follow dramatic downfalls of authoritarian regimes present policymakers with difficult choices. They are an opportunity to establish a sound basis for democratization, putting in place institutions and strengthening actors that help guarantee free and fair elections. Yet such elections are part of a high-stakes conflict over the future that takes place in a context of enormous uncertainty, as new actors emerge, old elites remake themselves, and the public engages in politics in new and unpredictable ways.

Assisting elections in the Arab world today is made more challenging by two factors that have thus far distinguished the region from others. First, transitions are made more difficult by extraordinarily strong demands to uproot the old regime. Fears that former regime elements will undermine ongoing revolutions along with demands for justice after decades of wrongdoing invariably create pressures to exclude former elites. In other regions, reformers within autocratic regimes, like Boris Yeltsin and South Africa’s F.W. DeKlerk, split from hardliners to spearhead reforms, muting demands for excluding old regime allies writ large. In the Middle East, however, old regime elites have been unable to credibly commit to reforms, partly given decades-long histories of empty promises and oppositions that remain largely determined to accept nothing less than Ben Ali-like departures. Room for compromise is difficult to find.

Second, for an international community hoping to support Arab transitions, widespread distrust of outside forces compounds these problems. Such distrust is inevitable in all post-colonial states; however, skepticism is particularly high in the Arab world, especially toward the United States. Cynicism about American intentions has been fed by U.S. support for Israel, its continued backing of Arab autocrats for nearly two decades after the Cold War, and, more recently, its unwillingness to take stronger stands against Mubarak, Asad, and others early on in the uprisings. Even if transitioning elites believe international expertise can help smooth the election process and enhance faith in the outcomes, they find it difficult to embrace in the context of heightened nationalism and a strong desire to assert sovereignty.

In light of these challenges, this paper explores how the international community can best engage in “founding” elections in the Arab world. Examining Egypt and Tunisia, the first two Arab states to hold elections, it focuses on challenges in leveling the playing field, managing electoral processes, and creating just and sustainable outcomes. These cases are undoubtedly unique in many ways and – as in any transition – remain in flux. Nevertheless, examining their early experience yields insights into how international actors can best approach those cases that may follow (e.g., Libya, Syria, and Yemen).

Most notably, these cases suggest that the democracy promotion community should approach first elections differently than it does subsequent ones. It should prioritize different goals and activities, in some cases even leaving off the agenda well-intentioned and generally constructive programs in order to focus on more urgent activities critical to strengthening electoral processes. Recognizing the enormous fear and uncertainty with which democrats approach first elections, international actors should resist the understandable urge to seek immediate, permanent democratic arrangements and “favorable” electoral outcomes. They should also encourage revolutionary forces to resist understandable, but counterproductive, urges to exclude allies of the former regime from new democratic processes. Rather, democracy promoters should suggest interim measures, encourage tolerance toward “unfavorable” results, and, in so doing, support democrats as they make their way through a long, imperfect process.

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Nearly three years after the fall of the Qaddafi regime, Libya’s revolution has stalled. Militias continue to run rampant as the government struggles to perform basic functions. Theoretically to protect the revolution, Libya passed its Political Isolation Law (PIL) in May 2013, effectively banning anyone involved in Qaddafi’s regime from the new government. The law has raised serious questions: Does it contribute to effective governance and reconciliation? Does it respect human rights and further transitional justice? Will it undermine Libya’s prospects for a successful democratic transition?

In this Brookings Doha Center-Stanford "Project on Arab Transitions" Paper, Roman David and Houda Mzioudet examine the controversy over Libya’s PIL and the law’s likely effects. Drawing on interviews with key Libyan actors, the authors find that the PIL has been manipulated for political purposes and that its application is actually weakening, not protecting, Libya. They caution that the PIL threatens to deprive Libya of competent leaders, undermine badly needed reconciliation, and perpetuate human rights violations.

David and Mzioudet go on to compare the PIL to the personnel reform approaches of Eastern European states and South Africa. Ultimately, they argue that Libyans would be better served if the PIL were replaced with a law based on inclusion rather than exclusion and on reconciliation rather than revenge. They maintain that Libya’s democratic transition would benefit from an approach that gives exonerated former regime personnel a conditional second chance instead of blindly excluding potentially valuable contributors.

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The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) adopted by Iran and the P5+1 partners in July 2015 was an effort not only to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons but also to avert a nuclear arms competition in the Middle East. But uncertainties surrounding the future of the Iran nuclear deal, including the question of what Iran will do when key JCPOA restrictions on its nuclear program expire after 15 years, could provide incentives for some of its neighbors to keep their nuclear options open.

In their Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Series monograph, “The Iran Nuclear Deal: Prelude to Proliferation in the Middle East?,” Robert Einhorn and Richard Nephew assess the current status of the JCPOA and explore the likelihood that, in the wake of the agreement, regional countries will pursue their own nuclear weapons programs or at least latent nuclear weapons capabilities. Drawing on interviews with senior government officials and non-government experts from the region, they focus in depth on the possible motivations and capabilities of Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates for pursuing nuclear weapons. The monograph also offers recommendations for policies to reinforce the JCPOA and reduce the likelihood that countries of the region will seek nuclear weapons.

On May 31, the Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative hosted a panel to discuss the impact of the JCPOA on prospects for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Brookings Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Foreign Policy Suzanne Maloney served as moderator. Panelists included H.E. Yousef Al Otaiba, ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States; Derek Chollet, counselor and senior advisor for security and defense policy at the German Marshall Fund; Brookings Senior Fellow Robert Einhorn; and Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Richard Nephew.

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In last summer’s congressional debate over the Iran nuclear deal—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—one of the more hotly debated issues was whether the deal would decrease or increase the likelihood that countries in the Middle East would pursue nuclear weapons.

Supporters of the JCPOA argued that, by removing the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran, it will reduce incentives for countries of the region to acquire nuclear arms. Opponents of the deal—not just in the United States but also abroad, especially Israel—claimed that the JCPOA would increase those incentives because it would legitimize enrichment in Iran, allow Iran to ramp up its nuclear capacity when key restrictions expire after 10 and 15 years, and boost the Iranian economy and the resources Iran could devote to a weapons program.

I strongly believe the JCPOA will significantly reduce prospects for proliferation in the Middle East (and as my colleague Richard Nephew explains in another post out today, there are things the United States and other powers can do to help reduce that prospect further). But uncertainties about the future of the JCPOA and the region will persist for quite some time—and these uncertainties could motivate regional countries to keep their nuclear options open. They may ask themselves a variety of questions in the years ahead: Will the JCPOA be sustainable over time? Will it unravel over concerns about compliance? Will it withstand challenges by opponents in Tehran and Washington? Will it survive leadership transitions in the United States and Iran? Will Iran ramp up its fissile material production capacities when key restrictions expire? Will it then break out of the JCPOA and seek to build nuclear weapons? Will Iran continue to threaten the security of its neighbors in the years ahead? And will the United States maintain a strong regional military presence and be seen by its partners as a reliable guarantor of their security?

I strongly believe the JCPOA will significantly reduce prospects for proliferation in the Middle East.

Richard and I studied how these and other questions might affect nuclear decision-making in the Middle East. In particular, we evaluated the likelihood that key states will pursue nuclear weapons, or at least enrichment or reprocessing programs that could give them a latent nuclear weapons capability. We focused on four states often regarded as potential candidates to join the nuclear club: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Turkey.

Saudi Arabia

Of the four, Saudi Arabia is the most highly motivated to pursue nuclear weapons. It sees Iran as an implacable foe that is intent on destabilizing its neighbors, achieving regional hegemony, and upending the Kingdom’s internal order. At the same time, the Saudis have lost much confidence in the U.S. commitment to the security of its regional partners. In part as a result, the new Saudi leadership has taken a more assertive, independent role in regional conflicts, especially in Yemen. But despite their reservations about the United States, the Saudis know they have no choice but to rely heavily on Washington for their security—and they know they would place that vital relationship in jeopardy if they pursued nuclear weapons.

The Saudis clearly have sufficient financial resources to make a run at nuclear weapons. But acquiring the necessary human and physical infrastructure to pursue an indigenous nuclear program would take many years.

Given the Kingdom’s difficulty in developing an indigenous nuclear weapons capability, speculation has turned to the possibility that it would receive support from a foreign power, usually Pakistan, which received generous financial support from Saudi Arabia in acquiring its own nuclear arsenal. But while rumors abound about a Pakistani commitment to help Saudi Arabia acquire nuclear weapons, the truth is hard to pin down. If such a Saudi-Pakistani agreement was ever reached, it was probably a vague, unwritten assurance long ago between a Pakistani leader and Saudi king, without operational details or the circumstances in which it would be activated. In any event, the Saudis would find it hard to rely on such an assurance today, when Pakistanis are trying to put the legacy of A.Q. Khan behind them and join the international nonproliferation mainstream. 

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Like Saudi Arabia, the UAE believes Iran poses a severe threat to regional security and has become more aggressive since the completion of the JCPOA. And like the Saudis, the Emiratis have lost considerable confidence in the reliability of the United States as a security guarantor. But also like the Saudis, the Emiratis are reluctant to put their vital security ties to the United States in jeopardy.

[L]ike the Saudis, the Emiratis have lost considerable confidence in the reliability of the United States as a security guarantor.

Moreover, the Emiratis are heavily invested in their ambitious nuclear energy program—with efforts currently underway, with the help of a South Korean-led consortium, to construct four nuclear power reactors—and they know this project would be dead in the water if they opted for nuclear weapons.

The Emiratis have also been a leading regional supporter of nonproliferation. In their bilateral agreement for civil nuclear cooperation with the United States, they formally renounced the acquisition of enrichment or reprocessing capabilities (the so-called “gold standard”), effectively precluding the pursuit of nuclear weapons. After the JCPOA permitted Iran to retain its enrichment program, the UAE, faced with criticism domestically and from some Arab governments for having given up its nuclear “rights,” said it may reconsider its formal renunciation of enrichment. But subsequently, Emirati officials have made clear that their nuclear energy plans have not changed and that they have no intention to pursue enrichment or reprocessing.

Egypt

Egypt is on everyone’s short list of potential nuclear aspirants—in part because of its former role as leader of the Arab world and its flirtation with nuclear weapons in the Gamal Abdel Nasser years. But while Egypt and Iran have often been regional rivals, Egypt does not view Iran as a direct military threat. Instead, Egypt’s main concerns include extremist activities in the Sinai, the fragmentation of Iraq and Syria, disarray in Libya—and the adverse impact of these developments on Egypt’s internal security. The Egyptians recognize that none of these threats can be addressed by the possession of nuclear weapons.

Although Russia is committed to work with Egypt on its first nuclear power reactor, Cairo’s nuclear energy plans have experienced many false starts before, and there is little reason to believe the outcome will be different this time around, especially given the severe economic challenges the Egyptian government currently faces. Moreover, although Egypt trained a substantial number of nuclear scientists in the 1950s and 1960s, its human nuclear infrastructure atrophied when ambitious nuclear energy plans never materialized.

Turkey

Because of its emergence in the last decade as a rising power, its large and growing scientific and industrial basis, and its ambition to be an influential regional player, Turkey is also on everyone’s short list of potential nuclear-armed states. But Turkey has maintained reasonably good relations with Tehran, even during the height of the sanctions campaign against Iran. Although the two countries have taken opposing sides in the Syria civil war, Turkey, like Egypt, does not regard Iran as a direct military threat. Indeed, Ankara sees instability and terrorism emanating from the Syrian conflict as its main security concerns—and nuclear weapons are not viewed as relevant to dealing with those concerns.

Current tensions with Russia over Turkey’s November 2015 shoot-down of a Russian fighter jet are another source of concern in Ankara. But the best means of addressing that concern is to rely on the security guarantee Turkey enjoys as a member of NATO. While Turkish confidence in NATO has waxed and waned in recent decades, most Turks, especially in the military, believe they can count on NATO in a crisis, and they would be reluctant to put their relationship with NATO at risk by pursuing nuclear weapons.

Former nuclear aspirants

For the sake of completeness, our study also looked at regional countries that once actively pursued nuclear weapons but were forced to abandon their programs: Iraq, Libya, and Syria. But we concluded that, given the civil strife tearing those countries apart, none of them was in a position to pursue a sustained, disciplined nuclear weapons effort.

Bottom line

Our study found that the Iran nuclear deal has significantly reduced incentives for countries of the Middle East to reconsider their nuclear options. At least for the foreseeable future, none of them is likely to pursue nuclear weapons or even latent nuclear weapons capabilities—or to succeed if they do. 

Editors’ Note: Bob Einhorn and Richard Nephew spoke about their new report at a recent Brookings event. You can see the video from the event here.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s idea to withdraw American forces from Asia—letting allies like Japan and South Korea fend for themselves, including possibly by acquiring nuclear weapons—is fundamentally unsound, as I’ve written in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Among the many dangers of preemptively pulling American forces out of Japan and South Korea, including an increased risk of war between Japan and China and a serious blow to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, such a move would heighten the threat of war between China and Taiwan. The possibility that the United States would dismantle its Asia security framework could unsettle Taiwan enough that it would pursue a nuclear deterrent against China, as it has considered doing in the past—despite China indicating that such an act itself could be a pathway to war. And without bases in Japan, the United States could not as easily deter China from potential military attacks on Taiwan. 

Trump’s proposed Asia policy could take the United States and its partners down a very dangerous road. It’s an experiment best not to run.

Event Information

As the 2016 election draws near, issues related to immigration and broader cultural change continue to dominate the national political dialogue. Now, an extensive new survey sheds light on how Americans view these issues. How do they feel about the proposed policy to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border or a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country? The survey of more than 2,500 Americans explores opinions on these questions and others concerning the current immigration system, immigrants’ contributions to American culture, and the cultural and economic anxieties fueling Donald Trump’s success among core Republican constituencies.

On June 23, Governance Studies at Brookings and the Public Religion Research Institute released the PRRI/Brookings Immigration Survey and hosted a panel of experts to discuss its findings. Additional topics explored in the survey and by the panel included perceptions of discrimination against white Americans and Christians, and the extent to which Americans believe that the uncertain times demand an unconventional leader.

Join the conversation on Twitter at #immsurvey and @BrookingsGov

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• The battle over the border: Public opinion on immigration and cultural change at the forefront of the election

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• The battle over the border: Public opinion on immigration and cultural change at the forefront of the election

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• 20160623_prri_jones_presentation
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My partner was caught at the Istanbul airport during the latest terrorist attack. She hid in a closet with a few people, including a small girl, disconcerted and afraid. And when the attack was over, she saw the blood, desolation, chaos, and tears of the aftermath. This was a horrific moment. Yet, it paled in comparison to what the injured and dead and their relatives had to suffer.

It seems that terrorism and political violence are becoming more prevalent and intense. They have been, however, long brewing and have affected many countries around the world. In the 1980s, my home country, Peru, suffered immensely from terrorism: The badly called “Shining Path” organization, with its communist ideology and ruthless tactics, terrorized first rural communities and then large cities with deadly bombs in crowded places and assassinations of official and civil society leaders.

A few years ago, Phil Keefer, lead economist at the World Bank, and I edited two books on what we perceived to be the main security threats of our time: terrorism and drug trafficking. We thought that the answers had to come from research, and we tried to gather the best available evidence and arguments to understand the links between these security threats and economic development.

After the myriad of recent terrorist attacks—in Istanbul, Munich, Nice, Bagdad, Brussels, and Paris, to name a few—we found it important to recap lessons learned. These lessons are not just academic: Understanding the root causes of terrorism can lead to policies for prevention and for reducing the severity of attacks. To defeat terrorism, a policy strategy should include three components: intelligence, integration, and development.

Intelligence. A terrorist attack is relatively easy to conduct. Modern societies offer many exposed and vulnerable targets: an airport, a crowded celebration by the beach, a bus station at peak hours, or a restaurant full of expats. And the potential weapons are too many to count: a squadron of suicide bombers, a big truck ramming through the streets, two or three comrades armed with semi-automatic guns. It is impossible to protect all flanks, and some of the measures taken to prevent the previous terrorist attacks are, well, frankly silly. For a strategy to have any chance against terrorism, it should be based on intelligence. Intelligence implies understanding the motivations, leadership structure, and modus operandi of terrorist organizations, and developing a plan that can anticipate and adapt to their constantly morphing operations. Importantly, the ideological dimension should not be ignored because it explains the extremes to which terrorists are willing to arrive: A suicide attack requires a person who has muted both his basic survival instinct and all sense of natural compassion for others. It was radical communism in the 1970s and 1980s; it is a perverted and fanatical misrepresentation of Islam nowadays. An intelligence strategy that targets the sources of terrorism, both the perpetrators and the social movements that underlie them, should be the first component of the campaign against terror.

Integration. Foreigners living in the U.S. like to make fun of Hollywood movies and the social rituals that Americans go through each year: Halloween and Thanksgiving are in many respects more popular than Christmas. Yet, thanks to these cultural norms along with widespread economic opportunities and equality under the law, the U.S. has mostly succeeded in what many countries, including some European ones, have failed: the integration of people of different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds. The U.S. is no paradise of integration, but the social melting pot does work for immigrants: Within a generation or two, Mexican Americans, Italian Americans, Iranian Americans, and so forth are just Americans, with a single national identity and, at least by law, the same rights and obligations. In some European countries, in contrast, many immigrants feel like second-class citizens. There is little that can inflame more hatred than the feeling of being excluded, and a misguided search for a sense of belonging can be the trigger that incites religious, ethnic, and ideological radicalization. This may explain why France has suffered more from terrorist acts perpetrated by their own residents than the U.S. or U.K., that paradoxically are substantially more engaged in the war against ISIS and al-Qaeda. Social integration—especially of immigrants—through explicit and targeted programs from education at an early age to immigration and citizenship reforms is a key component in the fight against terrorism.       

Development. One of the puzzles in the evidence on terrorism is that while it tends to be led (and sometimes even perpetrated) by well-off and educated people, it represents the complaints and grievances of the disenfranchised, the poor, and the unemployed. The hundreds of thousands of unemployed and discouraged young men in places as diverse as Afghanistan, Somalia, South Africa, and Brazil are the potential armies of common and political violence. In South Africa and Brazil, lacking an overriding communal ideology, this violence is expressed in robberies, homicides, and common crime. In Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, the violence is mostly political, taking the shape or at least the cover of religious fundamentalism. Somehow in Somalia, violence has adopted both criminal and political expressions: We worry about Somali pirates as much as we do about Somali jihadists. (On the link between vulnerable youth and violence, it is telling that the name of the main terrorist organization in Somalia, al-Shabaab, means literally “The Youth”) But there is hope. A couple of decades ago, thousands of unemployed young people joined terrorist organizations in Cambodia, Colombia, and Peru, when these countries were fragile. Since their economies started growing and providing employment, these armies for criminal and political violence have started to fade away. Investing in development, conducting economic reforms, and providing (yes, equal) opportunities is the third component of a winning strategy against terrorism.

A sound military and police strategy is undoubtedly important to counter terrorism. However, it’s not sufficient in the long run. If we want to defeat terrorism permanently and completely, we need to tackle it comprehensively, using political and military intelligence, social integration, and economic development.

For more, please see Keefer, Philip and Norman Loayza, Editors. Terrorism, Economic Development, and Political Openness. Cambridge University Press. 2008.

This keynote presentation by Bruce Katz at City Hall in Seattle describes how a vibrant center city stimulates a region's economy. The presentation also assesses how Seattle is faring on this front and what steps the city should take as it looks to the future.

The metro program hosts and participates in a variety of public forums. To view a complete list of these events, please visit the metro program's Speeches and Events page which provides copies of major speeches, powerpoint presentations, event transcripts, and event summaries.

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In an increasingly international and interconnected economy, Seattle was global before global was cool.

The region’s competitive global assets include internationally competitive firms, strategically important ports and one of the nation’s largest foreign-born populations.

Still, today’s unique economic moment demands an extra measure of purposeful global engagement.

As cities and metropolitan areas begin to emerge from the Great Recession, leaders are realizing the need to restructure the economy — to move from one based on debt and consumption to one powered by production and innovation.

At the same time, most economic growth over the next decade will occur outside of America’s borders. As of 2009, the combined economies of Brazil, India and China eclipsed that of the United States and now account for more than one-fifth of the global economy. By 2018, their share is expected to surpass one-quarter.

The developing world, with a rapidly rising middle class, represents a huge market opportunity for American firms. China and India alone are expected to increase their urban populations by more than 500 million over the next 20 years, which naturally leads to a rise in their consumer classes. By 2050, Chinese and Indian consumers will account for more than half of all middle-class consumption worldwide, up from just 2 percent in 2000.

These growing metropolises will also require massive investments in infrastructure and face huge challenges as they expand, challenges that U.S. firms have the expertise to solve — in transportation and mobility, in sustainability and clean energy, in information technology and software.

America’s metropolitan areas are uniquely positioned to take advantage of this dual challenge through increased trade and investment. The top 100 metro areas not only produce three-quarters of our gross domestic product, they also concentrate our most innovative firms, our research institutions and universities, and the majority of our skilled workers.

So how does the central Puget Sound region stack up? Recently, I came to Seattle as part of the Global Cities Initiative, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and JPMorgan Chase. This initiative aims to catalyze a shift in economic development priorities and practices that would result in more globally connected metropolitan areas and more sustainable economic growth.

The metro area has a strong platform for trade: firms such as Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon; world-class research assets including the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; and a strong legacy of globally oriented leadership, with a wide coalition, including public, private and civic leaders, actively promoting a regional strategy for global engagement.

The data bear this out: While Seattle is the 15th largest metro area in the United States, it has the sixth highest export total, sending more than $47 billion in goods and services abroad in 2012. These exports are overwhelmingly driven by globally competitive clusters in aerospace and information technology.

Partly due to this industry specialty, Seattle’s economy is also highly innovative and uniquely oriented toward science, technology, engineering and math: More than one-quarter of jobs in the metro are in STEM occupations, the fourth highest share of any metropolitan area in the country.

Still, in such a competitive and dynamic global economy, no metro area can afford complacency. In order to maintain its position in the global economy, Seattle needs to get serious about global engagement.

First, focus on global trade and investment. Continue the collaborative efforts of your public, private and civic leaders to focus economic development strategies on growth abroad. In Seattle earlier this month, regional leaders committed to expanding these efforts, joining the Global Cities Initiative’s Exchange, through which the metro area will develop a strategy to increase foreign direct investment in key industries.

Second, invest in what matters. To compete globally, metro areas must be strong at home. In Seattle, this means shoring up your workforce-development pipeline so that local residents have a path to good jobs in advanced industries. It also calls for a regional approach to financing and delivering transportation solutions that not only reduce congestion at home, but also improve your connections abroad.

Finally, metropolitan leaders must look beyond their own borders, identify their trading partners, and build relationships to increase both trade and investment. For example, as part of the Global Cities Initiative, Chicago and Mexico City entered into a first-of-its-kind economic partnership that builds on the extensive economic, social, cultural linkages between the two metros to make both more prosperous.

There are promising efforts under way in the region, as the King County Aerospace Alliance has started collaborating with Aéro Montréal so that the two aerospace clusters can be more competitive.

Simply put, in today’s economic landscape, every city is a global city. The success of regional economies hinges on their engagement throughout the global economy. Seattle has an enviable hand to play; but success is not inevitable.

This opinion piece originally appeared in the Seattle Times.

Editor's Note: On December 3, Richard Bush delivered testimony before the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Read his testimony below and watch the hearing online.

There has been a wide range of views in Hong Kong about the value of democratic elections.

So far, the Chinese government has consistently chosen to engineer the Hong Kong electoral system so that no individual it mistrusts could be elected chief executive (CE) and no political coalition that it fears could win control of the Legislative Council (or LegCo). To elect the chief executive, it created an election committee composed mainly of people it trusts. For LegCo, it established functional constituencies that give special representation to establishment economic and social groups. These functional constituencies together pick half the members of LegCo. As a result, Hong Kong’s economic elite has dominated those institutions.

Major economic interests in Hong Kong have been happy with the current set-up because it provides them with privileged access to decision-making and the ability to block initiatives proposed by the democratic camp. Within this establishment, there is long-standing belief that majority rule would create irresistible demands for a welfare state, which would raise taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals and sap Hong Kong’s competitiveness.

The public, on the other hand, supports democratization. In the most representative election races (for some LegCo seats), candidates of the pro-democracy parties together get 55 to 60 percent of the vote. Those parties have tried for over twenty years to make the electoral system more representative and to eliminate the ability of Beijing and the establishment to control political outcomes.  But there are divisions within the pan-democratic camp between moderate and radical factions, based on the degree of mistrust of Beijing’s intentions.

There is a working class party and a labor confederation that supports Beijing and is supported by it. On electoral reform, it has followed China’s lead.

Of course, any electoral system requires the protection of political rights. The Joint Declaration and the Hong Kong Basic Law protected those rights on paper, and the judiciary generally has upheld them. But there are serious concerns in Hong Kong that political rights are now being whittled away.

The August 31^st decision of the PRC National People’s Congress-Standing Committee on the 2017 Chief Executive election confirmed the fears of Hong Kong’s pan-democratic camp that Beijing does not intend to create a genuinely democratic electoral system. That decision almost guaranteed there would be with some kind of public protest.

Before August 31^st, there had been some hope in Hong Kong that China’s leaders would set flexible parameters for the 2017 election of the chief executive, flexible enough to allow an election in which candidates that represented the range of local opinions could compete on a level playing field. Instead, the rules the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress laid down were interpreted as ensuring that Beijing and the local Hong Kong establishment, by controlling the nominating committee, could screen out candidates that they saw as a threat to their interests.

I happen to believe that before August 31^st there was available a compromise on the nomination process. The approach I have in mind would have liberalized the composition of the nominating committee so that it was more representative of Hong Kong society and set a reasonable threshold for placing someone in nomination. This would have been consistent with the Basic Law (a Chinese requirement) and likely ensured that a pan-Democratic politician could have been nominated (the democrats’ minimum hope). Hong Kong voters would have had a genuine choice. There were Hong Kong proposals along these lines. Such an approach would have had a chance of gaining the support of moderate Democrats in Legislative Council, enough for reaching the two-thirds majority required for passage of the election plan.

Reaching such a compromise was difficult because of the deep-seated mistrust between the Hong Kong democratic camp and Beijing, and within the democratic camp. If there was to be movement towards a deal Beijing would have had to signal that it was serious about such a compromise, in order to engage moderate democrats. It chose not to, and an opportunity was lost.

Why Beijing spurned a compromise is unclear.

Perhaps it interpreted its “universal suffrage” pledge narrowly, to mean one-person-one-vote, and not a competitive election. Perhaps it wished to defer a truly competitive contest until it was sure that one-person-one-vote elections would not hurt its interests. Perhaps Beijing was overly frightened about the proposed civil disobedience campaign called “Occupy Central.” Perhaps it judged that radical democrats would block their moderate comrades from agreeing to a compromise. Perhaps China actually believed its own propaganda that “foreign forces” were behind the protests. Perhaps it never had any intention of allowing truly representative government and majority rule. But if Beijing believed that taking a hard line would ensure stability, it was badly mistaken.

Whatever the case, the majority in Hong Kong saw the August 31^st decision as a bait-and-switch way for Beijing to continue to control the outcome of the CE election and as a denial of the long-standing desire for genuine democracy. A coalition of student leaders, Occupy Central supporters, democratic politicians, radical activists, and middle class people resorted to the only political outlet they had: public protest. If the Chinese government had wished to empower Hong Kong radicals, it couldn’t have hit upon a better way.

Although Beijing’s August 31^st decision guaranteed a public response in Hong Kong, the form it took was unexpected. Student groups preempted the original Occupy Central plan, and the takeover of three separate downtown areas resulted, not from a plan but from the flow of events. The Hong Kong Police did overreact in some instances, but each time it sought to reestablish control, there was a surge of public support for the core protester groups, mobilized by social and other media.

The protests were fueled by more than a desire for democracy.

Also at work were factors common in other advanced societies. Hong Kong’s level of income and wealth inequality is one of the highest in the world. Young people tend to believe that they will not be able to achieve a standard of living similar to that of their parents. Real wages have been flat for more than a decade. Buying a home is out of reach for young people, in part because a small group of real estate companies control the housing supply. Smart and ambitious individuals from China compete for good jobs.

Hong Kong students have gotten the most attention in the current protests. Just as important however, are older cohorts who are pessimistic about their life chances. They believe that the Hong Kong elite, which controls both economic and political power, is to blame for these problems. They regard genuine democracy as the only remedy.

The Hong Kong government’s response has been mixed but restrained on the whole.

The Hong Kong police did commit excesses in their attempt to control the crowds. Teargas was used once early on, and pepper spray on a number of occasions since then. There was one particular incident where police officers beat a protester excessively (for which seven of the officers involved were arrested last week).

It is worth noting that the scenario for which the police prepared was not the one that occurred. What was expected was a civil disobedience action in a relatively restricted area with a moderate number of protesters who, following their leaders’ plan, would allow themselves to be arrested. What happened in late September was very different. There were three venues instead of one. Many more protesters took part, and they had no interest in quickly offering themselves for arrest. Instead, they sought to maintain control of public thoroughfares, a violation of law, until Beijing and the Hong Kong government made major concessions. Even when courts have ordered some streets cleared, those occupying have not always complied.

After the initial clashes, the Hong Kong government chose not to mount a major crackdown but instead to wait out the protesters. It accepted the occupation for a number of weeks, and now seeks to clear some streets pursuant to court order. Moreover, the government undertook to engage at least one of the students in a dialogue over how to end the crisis. In the only session of the dialogue to occur, on October 21^st, senior officials floated ideas to assuage some of the protesters’ concerns and to improve upon the electoral parameters laid down by Beijing.

The dialogue has not progressed for two reasons. First of all, the Hong Kong government is not a free agent in resolving the crisis. Beijing is the ultimate decider here, and the Hong Kong government must stay within the guidelines it sets. Second, the student federation leaders who took part in the dialogue are not free agents either. They represent only one of the student groups, and other actors are involved. With its leadership fragmented, the movement has never figured out its minimum goals and therefore what it would accept in return for ending the protest. It underestimated Beijing’s resolve and instead has insisted on the impossible, that Beijing withdraw the August 31^st decision. Now, even though the Hong Kong public and the leaders of the original Occupy Central effort believe that the protesters should retire to contend another day, the occupation continues.

For those who believe that the rule of law is a fundamental pillar of Hong Kong’s autonomy, the last two months have been worrisome. Once some members of a community decide for themselves which laws they will obey and which they won’t; once the authorities pick and choose which laws they will enforce and abide by, the rule of law begins to atrophy. The protesters’ commitment to democracy is commendable. The generally restrained and peaceable character of their protest has been widely praised. But something is lost when both the community and its government begin to abandon the idea that no-one is above the law.

Regional views and implications

Observers have believed that the implications of the Umbrella Movement are greatest for Taiwan, because Beijing has said that Taiwan will be reunified under the same formula that it used for Hong Kong (one-country, two systems). And there was momentary media attention in Taiwan when the Hong Kong protests began, but it quickly dissipated. The vast majority of Taiwan citizens have long since rejected one-country, two systems. China’s Hong Kong policies only reconfirm what Taiwan people already knew.

Hong Kong events also send a signal to all of East Asia’s democracies, not just Taiwan. Anyone who studies Hong Kong’s politics and society comes to the conclusion that it has been as ready for democracy as any place in East Asia, and that its instability in recent years is due more to the absence of democracy than because it is unready.

The long-standing premise of U.S. policy is that Hong Kong people are ready for democracy. Since the protest movement began, the U.S. government has reiterated its support for the rule of law, Hong Kong’s autonomy, respect for the political freedoms of Hong Kong people, and a universal-suffrage election that would provide the people of Hong Kong “a genuine choice of candidates that are representative of the peoples and the voters’ will.” Washington has also called for restraint on all sides.

Finally, the strategic question for East Asia is what the rise of China means for its neighbors. That question will be answered in part by China’s power relative to the United States and others. But it will also be answered by what happens between China and its neighbors in a series of specific encounters. Through those interactions, China will define what kind of great power it will become. North Korea, the East and South China Seas, and Taiwan are the most obvious of these specific encounters. But Hong Kong is as well. If the struggle there for a more democratic system ends well, it will tell us something positive about China’s future trajectory. If it ends badly, it will say something very different.

Looking forward, several options exist for resolving the crisis and only one of them is good.

One option is a harsh crackdown by China. Article 18 of the Basic Law gives Beijing the authority to declare a state of emergency in Hong Kong if “turmoil” there “endangers national unity or security and is beyond the control” of the Hong Kong government. In that case, Chinese national laws would be applied to Hong Kong and could be enforced in the same way they are in China. We would then see crowd control, Chinese style. I believe this scenario is unlikely as long as Beijing has some confidence that the protest movement will become increasingly isolated and ultimately collapse.

A second option is that the occupation ends but the unrepresentative electoral system that has been used up until now continues. That would happen because two-thirds of the Legislative Council is required to enact the one-person-one-vote proposal of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments for electing the chief executive. Getting two-thirds requires the votes of a few democratic members. If all moderate democrats oppose the package for whatever reason, then the next CE will be elected by the 1,200-person election committee, not by Hong Kong voters. Protests are liable to resume. There is a danger that in response, Beijing will move quietly to restrict press freedom, the rule of law, and the scope for civil society beyond what it has already done.

The third scenario is for a late compromise within the parameters of Beijing’s August 31^st decision. The goal here would be to create a process within the nominating committee that would make it possible for a leader of the democratic camp to be nominated for the chief executive election, creating a truly competitive election. That requires two things. First, the nominating committee must be more representative of Hong Kong society. Second, the nominating committee, before it picks the two or three election nominees, should be able to review a greater number of potential nominees. Done properly, that could yield the nomination of a democratic politician whom Beijing does not mistrust but whose platform would reflect the aspirations of democratic voters. Prominent individuals in Hong Kong have discussed this approach in print, and Hong Kong senior officials have hinted a willingness to consider it. For such a scenario to occur, Beijing would have to be willing to show more flexibility than demonstrated so far; the Hong Kong government should be forthcoming about what it has in mind; and some leaders of the democratic camp must be willing to engage both Beijing and the Hong Kong government. In the climate of mutual mistrust that has deepened since August 31^st, that is a tall order. But at this point it appears to be the best way out of a bad situation.

Event Information

Recent events in Taiwan, including the Sunflower Movement and the November 29 municipal elections in 2014, indicate changes in Taiwan’s political landscape. Political parties and candidates will have to adjust to changing public opinion and political trends as the January 2016 presidential and legislative elections approach. The two main parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), face both opportunities and challenges in disseminating their messages and garnering public support. The strategies that each party develops in order to capture the necessary votes and seats will be critical. 

On April 22, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings and Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies co-hosted a public forum to identify and analyze the politics behind the 2016 elections in Taiwan. Leading experts from Taiwan and the United States assessed the new forces and phenomena within Taiwan politics; how the election system itself may contribute to election outcomes, especially for the Legislative Yuan; and how the major parties must respond to emerging trends.

 Join the conversation on Twitter at #TaiwanElections

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• Taiwan’s shifting political landscape and the politics of the 2016 elections

Transcript

• Transcript (.pdf)

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• 20150422_taiwan_transcript

This is the first in a series of reports on the demographic and political dynamics under way in 10 “battleground” states, deemed to be crucial in deciding the 2008 election. As part of the Metropolitan Policy Program’s Blueprint for American Prosperity, this series will provide an electoral component to the initiative’s analysis of and prescriptions for bolstering the health and vitality of America’s metropolitan areas, the engines of the U.S economy. This report focuses on Pennsylvania. Among its specific findings are:

• Pennsylvania is becoming a demographic “bridge” between Midwestern states like Ohio and other Northeastern states like New Jersey, as its new growth is tied to urban coastal regions. While often classed as a so-called “Rust Belt” state, its eastern and south central regions are increasingly becoming part of the nation’s Northeast Corridor, with new growth and demographic profiles that warrant attention in upcoming elections.
• Eligible voter populations indicate a state in transition, where minorities, especially Hispanics, and white college graduates are increasingly important, but where white working class voters continue to play a central role. While white working class voters continue to decline as a share of voters and are less likely to work in manufacturing and goods production, they are still a critical segment of voters, including in the fast-growing Harrisburg and Allentown regions where their absolute numbers are actually increasing.
• Recent Democratic victories in Pennsylvania have featured strong support from groups like minorities, single women, and the young but have also benefited from relatively strong support among the white working class, especially among its upwardly mobile segment that has some college education. Compared to 1988, both the latter group and white college graduates have increased their support for Democrats. And both groups have increased their share of voters over the time period.
• Political shifts in Pennsylvania since 1988 have seen the growing eastern part of the state swing toward the Democrats, producing four straight presidential victories for that party. The swing has been sharpest in the Philadelphia suburbs, but has also been strong in the Allentown region and even affected the pro-Republican Harrisburg region. Countering this swing, the declining western part of the state has been moving toward the GOP.
• Key trends and groups to watch in 2008 include the white working class, especially whites with some college, who, unlike the rest of this group, are growing; white college graduates; and Hispanics, who have been driving the growth of the minority vote.

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An analysis of the growth and characteristics of the foreign-born in the Philadelphia metropolitan area between 1970 and 2006 finds:

• Among its peers, metropolitan Philadelphia has the largest and fastest growing immigrant population, which now stands at over 500,000, comprising 9 percent of the population. Between 2000 and 2006, greater Philadelphia’s immigrant population grew by 113,000, nearly as many as had arrived in the decade of the 1990s.
• Metropolitan Philadelphia has a diverse mix of immigrants and refugees from Asia (39 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (28 percent), Europe (23 percent) and Africa (8 percent). The 10 largest source countries are India, Mexico, China, Vietnam, Korea, Italy, Ukraine, Philippines, Jamaica, and Germany.
• Immigrant growth in suburban Philadelphia has outpaced the city’s growth, but numerically, the city has the largest population of all local jurisdictions. Outside the city, Montgomery County had the earliest post- World War II suburban settlement of the foreign born and has the largest number of immigrants among jurisdictions, while Chester County saw the fastest growth during the 1970-2006 time period.
• Nearly 60 percent of the foreign-born living in metropolitan Philadelphia arrived in the United States after 1990. Although their naturalization rates and educational levels reflect their recentness of arrival, on the whole, greater Philadelphia’s immigrants are doing well on these measures as compared with some other U.S. metropolitan immigrant populations.
• Nearly 75 percent of greater Philadelphia’s labor force growth since 2000 is attributable to immigrants. Immigrants’ contributions to the labor force are considerably higher in this period than in the 1990s, when just 36 percent of the growth was due to immigrants.

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Bringing together the five counties of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the nonprofit Metropolitan Caucus, a new regional consortium there, is promoting a joint regional application for ARRA’s competitive Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant dollars. Its four-part proposal, which will add and refine partners and programs over time, draws on the collaboration of multiple regional institutions to establish and operate a loan fund for green building and retrofits; support clean energy technology deployment; assist local governments with energy efficiency plans; and measure the energy performance of public facilities.

The newly created Metropolitan Caucus of southeastern Pennsylvania is leading the bold new regional energy efficiency strategy targeting for the competitive Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants (EECBG) in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Unprecedented for the region, the Metropolitan Caucus has brought together five area counties—Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia—to make the most of the stimulus opportunity by coordinating their plans, goals, and assets to achieve maximum regional benefit. Their proposed joint EECBG competitive application for roughly $35 million calls for financing construction and retrofits, supporting clean energy companies, measuring building energy performance, and assisting local governments in implementing various sustainability solutions. To carry out each of these activities, the caucus intends to engage in broad cross-sector collaboration to leverage the strengths and unique assets of regional educational institutions, key nonprofits, and planning agencies.

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With the GOP convention now in the electoral rearview mirror, attention is pivoting quickly from Ohio to Pennsylvania as the Democrats kick off their own nominating convention in Philadelphia.

Although it has voted Democratic in the last six presidential elections, political analysts have historically regarded the Keystone State as a swing state. FiveThirtyEight’s latest general election forecast projects a 46 percent vote share for Hillary Clinton, versus just under 44 percent for Donald Trump, making it the sixth-most competitive state. Pennsylvania also features what is shaping up to be a tight Senate race between incumbent Republican Pat Toomey and Democratic nominee Katie McGinty. Thus, it is useful to see how the state’s voters might view the condition of the economy, which could very well influence turnout levels and candidate preferences amid close contests this November.

The economic perspectives of Pennsylvanians are perhaps best understood through the prism of the state’s highly distinctive major metropolitan areas. Five large metro areas span the state—Allentown, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Scranton—and together account for 63 percent of Pennsylvania’s population and 75 percent of its GDP. Their economic specializations are diverse: trade, transportation, and manufacturing in Allentown and Scranton; financial, professional, and educational services in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; and government in the state capital of Harrisburg. While much political news coverage of Pennsylvania is likely to focus on its iconic small towns, it is really these large metro areas that define the state demographically and economically.

While Pennsylvania was not one of the states hardest hit by the Great Recession, most of its major metropolitan areas bounced back relatively slowly. According to the Brookings Metro Monitor, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and Scranton ranked among the 20 slowest-growing large metropolitan economies from 2009 to 2014. All performed somewhat better on achieving increases in the local standard of living (prosperity), but Pittsburgh stood out for its 6 percent average wage growth during that time, seventh-fastest in the nation. This wage trend also seems to have propelled Pittsburgh to a better performance than other Pennsylvania metro areas on indicators of employment, wages, and relative poverty (inclusion). Allentown, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia, on the other hand, registered declines in typical worker wages during the first five years of the recovery and little to no progress in reducing poverty.

The picture over a longer timeframe is similar, though somewhat less dire. Pittsburgh posted middling growth but very strong performance on prosperity and inclusion over the past 10 to 15 years. That provided a contrast with Allentown, where the economy grew somewhat faster but productivity and average standards of living did not, and economic inclusion suffered. The remaining metro areas—Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and Scranton—all grew weakly but managed to post middling performance on prosperity and inclusion indicators.

Pennsylvania remains a whiter state than the national average, but its major metro areas are increasingly diverse, particularly in the southeastern part of the state around Philadelphia and Allentown. Nonetheless, Pennsylvania’s economic challenges are frequently framed around the plight of the white working class, which, as my colleague Bill Frey notes, comprises 59 percent of the state’s eligible voter population. In Allentown, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia, whites have indeed suffered long-term wage stagnation. Yet in the more manufacturing-oriented Pittsburgh and Scranton areas, median wages for whites rose significantly from 2000 to 2014. By contrast, workers of color have experienced much more troublesome wage trends, losing ground to whites in every major metro area. Across the five metro areas, typical earnings differences between whites and other workers in 2014 averaged between $10,000 and $12,000.

A look at the most recent job trends, from 2014 to 2016, suggests a shifting metro growth map in Pennsylvania. Over the past two years, Philadelphia and Harrisburg have posted much stronger job gains, Allentown’s average annual job growth rate has halved, and Pittsburgh’s job level has flat-lined. The state’s two largest urban centers frame this stark change. In every major industry category, average annual job growth in Philadelphia over the past two years outpaced its rate over the previous five years. In Pittsburgh, on the other hand, job growth slowed—or turned negative—in nearly every sector. The recent energy price crash has halted a fracking boom that buoyed the western Pennsylvania economy through much of the recovery, at the same time that Philadelphia is enjoying a surge in professional services and construction employment. Fittingly, Donald Trump used Allegheny County, outside Pittsburgh, as the backdrop for one of his first post-primary campaign stops, while Philadelphia’s economic momentum will be the background of the Democrats’ argument for another four years in the White House.

The Pennsylvania economy is thus not easily characterized, and the attitudes of its voters are likely to be shaped by regionally specific short-term and long-term trends. Those trends seem sure to keep the Keystone State’s electoral votes and U.S. Senate seat highly contested over the next several months.