How has the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—signed between the P5+1 and Iran one year ago—played out in practice? Several Brookings scholars, many of whom participated prominently in debates last year surrounding official congressional review, offered their views.

Strobe Talbott, President, Brookings Institution: At the one-year mark, it’s clear that the nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers has substantially restricted Tehran’s ability to produce the fissile material necessary to build a bomb. That’s a net positive—for the United States and the broader region.

Robert Einhorn, Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Senior Fellow, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Foreign Policy program: One year after its conclusion, the JCPOA remains controversial in Tehran and Washington (as I describe in more detail here), with opponents unreconciled to the deal and determined to derail it. But opponents have had to scale back their criticism, in large part because the JCPOA, at least so far, has delivered on its principal goal—blocking Iran’s path to nuclear weapons for an extended period of time. Moreover, Iran’s positive compliance record has not given opponents much ammunition. The IAEA found Iran in compliance in its two quarterly reports issued in 2016. But challenges to the smooth operation and even the longevity of the deal are already apparent. A real threat to the JCPOA is that Iran will blame the slow recovery of its economy on U.S. failure to conscientiously fulfill its sanctions relief commitments and, using that as a pretext, will curtail or even end its own implementation of the deal. But international banks and businesses have been reluctant to engage Iran not because they have been discouraged by the United States but because they have their own business-related reasons to be cautious. Legislation proposed in Congress could also threaten the nuclear deal.  For now, the administration is in a position to block new legislation that it believes would scuttle the deal. But developments outside the JCPOA, especially Iran’s regional behavior and its crackdown on dissent at home, could weaken support for the JCPOA within the United States and give proponents of deal-killing legislation a boost.  A potential wildcard for the future of the JCPOA is coming governing transitions in both Washington and Tehran. Hillary Clinton would maintain the deal but perhaps a harder line than her predecessor. Donald Trump now says he will re-negotiate rather than scrap the deal, but a better deal will not prove negotiable. With President Hassan Rouhani up for re-election next year and the health of the Supreme Leader questionable, Iran’s future policy toward the JCPOA cannot be confidently predicted. A final verdict on the JCPOA is many years away. But it is off to a promising start, as even some of its early critics now concede. Still, it is already clear that the path ahead will not always be smooth, the longevity of the deal cannot be taken for granted, and keeping it on track will require constant focus in Washington and other interested capitals.

Suzanne Maloney, Deputy Director, Foreign Policy program and Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has fulfilled neither the worst fears of its detractors nor the most soaring ambitions of its proponents. All of the concerns that have shaped U.S. policy toward Tehran for more than a generation—terrorism, human rights abuses, weapons of mass destruction, regional destabilization—remain as relevant, and as alarming, as they have ever been. Notably, much the same is true on the Iranian side; the manifold grievances that Tehran has harbored toward Washington since the 1979 revolution continue to smolder. An important truth about the JCPOA, which has been wielded by both its defenders and its detractors in varying contexts, is that it was transactional, not transformational. As President Barack Obama repeatedly insisted, the accord addressed one specific problem, and in those narrow terms, it can be judged a relative success. The value of that relative success should not be underestimated; a nuclear-armed Iran would magnify risks in a turbulent region in a terrible way.  But in the United States, in Iran, and across the Middle East, the agreement has always been viewed through a much broader lens—as a waystation toward Iranian-American rapprochement, as an instrument for addressing the vicious cycle of sectarian violence that threatens to consume the region, as a boost to the greater cause of moderation and democratization in Iran. And so the failure of the deal to catalyze greater cooperation from Iran on a range of other priorities—Syria, Yemen, Iraq, to name a few—or to jumpstart improvements in Iran’s domestic dynamics cannot be disregarded simply because it was not its original intent.  For the “new normal” of regularized diplomatic contact between Washington and Tehran to yield dividends, the United States will need a serious strategy toward Tehran that transcends the JCPOA, building on the efficacy of the hard-won multilateral collaboration on the nuclear issue. Iranians, too, must begin to pivot the focus of their efforts away from endless litigation of the nuclear deal and toward a more constructive approach to addressing the deep challenges facing their country today.

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy and Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Director, Intelligence Project, Foreign Policy program: As I explain more fully here, one unintended but very important consequence of the Iran nuclear deal has been to aggravate and intensify Saudi Arabia's concerns about Iran's regional goals and intentions. This fueling of Saudi fears has in turn fanned sectarian tensions in the region to unprecedented levels, and the results are likely to haunt the region for years to come. Riyadh's concerns about Iran have never been primarily focused on the nuclear danger. Rather, the key Saudi concern is that Iran seeks regional hegemony and uses terrorism and subversion to achieve it. The deal deliberately does not deal with this issue. In Saudi eyes, it actually makes the situation worse because lifting sanctions removed Iran's isolation as a rogue state and gives it more income.  Washington has tried hard to reassure the Saudis, and President Obama has wisely sought to build confidence with King Salman and his young son. The Iran deal is a good one, and I've supported it from its inception. But it has had consequences that are dangerous and alarming. In the end, Riyadh and Tehran are the only players who can deescalate the situation—the Saudis show no sign of interest in that road.

Norman Eisen, Visiting Fellow, Governance Studies: The biggest disappointment of the post-deal year has been the failure of Congress to pass legislation complementing the JCPOA. There is a great deal that the legislative branch could do to support the pact. Above all, it could establish criteria putting teeth into U.S. enforcement of Preamble Section III, Iran's pledge never to seek nuclear weapons. Congress could and should make clear what the ramp to seeking nuclear weapons would look like, what the triggers would be for U.S. action, and what kinds of U.S. action would be on the table. If Iran knows that, it will modulate its behavior accordingly. If it does not, it will start to act out, and we have just kicked the can down the road. That delay is of course immensely valuable—but why not extend the road indefinitely? Congress can do that, and much more (e.g. by increasing funding for JCPOA oversight by the administration and the IAEA), with appropriate legislation.

Richard Nephew, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Foreign Policy program: Over the past year, much effort has gone into ensuring that the Iran deal is fully implemented. To date, the P5+1 has—not surprisingly—gotten the better end of the bargain, with significant security benefits accruing to them and their partners in the Middle East once the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified the required changes to Iran's nuclear program. Iran, for its part, has experienced a natural lag in its economic resurgence, held back by the collapse in oil prices in 2014, residual American and European sanctions, and reluctance among banks and businesses to re-engage. But, Iran's economy has stabilized and—if the deal holds for its full measure—the security benefits that the P5+1 and their partners have won may fall away while Iran's economy continues to grow. The most important challenge related to the deal for the next U.S. administration (and, presumably, the Rouhani administration in its second term) is therefore: how can it be taken forward, beyond the 10- to 15-year transition period? Iran will face internal pressure to expand its nuclear program, but it also will face pressure to refrain both externally and internally, should other countries in the region seek to create their own matching nuclear capabilities.  The best next step for all sides is to negotiate a region-wide arrangement to manage nuclear programs –one that constrains all sides, though perhaps not equally. It must ensure—at a minimum—that nuclear developments in the region are predictable, understandable, and credibly civilian (something Bob Einhorn and I addressed in a recent report). The next White House will need to do the hard work of convincing countries in the region—and beyond—not to rest on the victory of the JCPOA. Rather, they must take it for what it is: another step towards a more stable and manageable region.

Tamara Wittes, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:  This week, Washington is awash in events and policy papers taking stock of how the Iran nuclear deal has changed the Middle East in the past year. The narratives presented this week largely track the positions that the authors, speakers, or organizations articulated on the nuclear deal when it was first concluded last summer. Those who opposed the deal have marshaled evidence of how the deal has "emboldened" Iran's destabilizing behavior, while those who supported the deal cite evidence of "moderated" politics in the Islamic Republic. That polarized views on the deal last year produce polarized assessments of the deal's impact this year should surprise no one. In fact, no matter which side of the nuclear agreement’s worth it presents, much of the analysis out this week ascribes to the nuclear deal Iranian behavior and attitudes in the region that existed before the deal's conclusion and implementation. Iran has been a revisionist state, and a state sponsor of terrorism, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Saudi-Iranian rivalry predates the revolution; Iran's backing of Houthi militias against Saudi and its allies in Yemen well predates the nuclear agreement. Most notably, the upheavals in the Arab world since 2011 have given Iran wider opportunities than perhaps ever before to exploit the cracks within Arab societies—and to use cash, militias, and other tools to advance its interests and expand its influence. Iran has exploited those opportunities skillfully in the last five years and, as I wrote last summer, was likely to continue to do so regardless of diplomatic success or failure in Vienna. To argue that the nuclear deal somehow created these problems, or could solve them, is ahistorical.  It is true that Iran's access to global markets might free even more cash for these endeavors, and that is a real issue worth tracking. But since severe sanctions did not prevent Iran from spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support and supply Hezbollah, or marshaling Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and militia fighters to sustain the faltering regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, it's not clear that additional cash will generate a meaningful difference in regional outcomes. Certainly, the nuclear deal's conclusion and implementation did not alter the trajectory of Iranian policy in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon to any noticeable degree—and that means that, no matter what the merits or dangers of the JCPOA, the United States must still confront and work to resolve enduring challenges to regional instability—including Iran's revisionist behavior.

Kenneth M. Pollack, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:  When the JCPOA was being debated last year, I felt that the terms of the deal were far less consequential than how the United States responded to Iranian regional behavior after a deal was signed. I see the events of the past 12 months as largely having borne that out. While both sides have accused the other of "cheating," the deal has so far largely held. However, as many of my colleagues have noted, the real frictions have arisen from the U.S. geostrategic response to the deal. I continue to believe that signing the JCPOA was better than any of the realistic alternatives—though I also continue to believe that a better deal was possible, had the administration handled the negotiations differently. However, the administration’s regional approach since then has been problematic—with officials condemning Riyadh and excusing Tehran in circumstances where both were culpable and ignoring some major Iranian transgressions, for instance (and with President Obama gratuitously insulting the Saudis and other U.S. allies in interviews).  America's traditional Sunni Arab allies (and to some extent Turkey and Israel) feared that either the United States would use the JCPOA as an excuse to further disengage from the region or to switch sides and join the Iranian coalition. Their reading of events has been that this is precisely what has happened, and it is causing the GCC states to act more aggressively. I think our traditional allies would enthusiastically welcome a Hillary Clinton presidency. She would likely do all that she could to reassure them that she plans to be more engaged and more willing to commit American resources and energy to Middle Eastern problems. But those allies will eventually look for her to turn words into action. I cannot imagine a Hillary Clinton administration abrogating the JCPOA, imposing significant new economic sanctions on Iran, or otherwise acting in ways that it would fear could provoke Tehran to break the deal. Our allies may see that as Washington trying to remain on the fence, which will infuriate them.  So there are some important strategic differences between the United States and its regional allies. The second anniversary of the JCPOA could therefore prove even more fraught for America and the Middle East than the first.

       

       

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at a joint meeting of Congress. His address sparked an intense debate among U.S. and Israeli lawmakers over the protocol issues raised by the invitation to speak, which came from the Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives without consultation with the Obama White House, as well as the substance of the address — a broadside against Obama’s Iran policy — and its timing during the final days of a closely contested Israeli election.

Brookings scholars weighed in on the debate, through blog posts, op-eds and the media. These include:

Fellow Natan Sachs explained why Netanyahu’s speech was so controversial.  "Israelis, by and large, don't like it when their prime minister quarrels with the United States," Sachs told Vox. "For most voters, especially in the core base on the right and I think center right, here's Bibi doing something that opposition leaders cannot do: speak the way he does with his English and this reception from Americans.” Also read Sachs' blog post on the electoral implications of the speech as well as his Haaretz op-ed with recommendations for Israeli and American strategy toward the Iran nuclear talks.

Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Center for Middle East Policy (CMEP) at Brookings, appeared on Charlie Rose following the speech, and said, “I think the speech was very effective, as a speech, particularly at the end when Netanyahu was really playing to his domestic audience and political base more than anyone…I think that’s probably the video clip the Likud will be playing in  ads as the campaign winds down.”

Nonresident Senior Fellow Shibley Telhami looked at poll results examined U.S. public opinion related to Netanyahu’s speech. "Among Democrats, those holding favorable views of the Israeli prime minister declined from 25 percent in November to 16 percent in February, and among Independents from 21 percent to 14 percent. Correspondingly, unfavorable views increased from 22 to 26 percent among Democrats, and from 14 to 21 percent among Independents," he wrote in Foreign Policy.

A New York Times editorial examining Netanyahu's speech discussed American public opinion on the Iran nuclear deal, and cited Telhami’s poll results “show[ing] that a clear majority of Americans — including 61 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of Democrats — favor an agreement.” Telhami also organized and moderated the annual Sadat Forum earlier this week, featuring a discussion on the Iranian nuclear issue and the Netanyahu speech with Brookings Distinguished Fellow Ambassador Thomas Pickering, former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Jessica Matthews, and CMEP Senior Fellow Suzanne Maloney.

According to Ambassador Martin Indyk, who has served as director of the Foreign Policy program and was just named Brookings Executive Vice President, Netanyahu remained against any agreement. “He was pretty clear about his opposition to the deal,” Indyk told Foreign Policy. “I believe he wants to sink it, not modify it.”

Prior to the speech, Robert Einhorn, senior fellow in the Center for 21st Century Intelligence and Security and the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Initiative, wrote an op-ed published in the International New York Times discussing Netanyahu’s angle on the Iran talks. After Netanyahu’s speech, Einhorn appeared on Christiane Amanpour and argued that the deal was “not an ideal deal, but it’s a good deal, and one that’s better than any realistic alternative.” Einhorn, who formerly participated in the negotiations with Iran as a senior State Department official, was quoted in coverage of the speech published in the Washington Post and Politico, among others.

In an op-ed on U.S. News and World Report, Maloney argued that when it comes to a deal with Iran, “The ever-present illusion of a more perfect deal is not worth risking an imperfect, but minimally sufficient, bargain.”

With the prospect of a nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 looking increasingly likely and with the caveat that, “as always, Iran’s future behavior is hard to predict because its motives going into the nuclear negotiations are unclear and its decision-making is always opaque,” Senior Fellow Kenneth M. Pollack examined the possible scenarios and offered his thoughts on whether a nuclear deal would likely make Iran more or less aggressive — or neither. 

Bruce Riedel, senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project, wrote about Netanyahu’s address in contrast to Saudi Arabia’s diplomacy. “As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plays center stage at the Congress this week to slam the Iran deal-in-the-making, the Saudis are playing a more subtle game,” Riedel wrote. “Iran is priority number one. It's more than just the nuclear issue.” The pot was also quoted in a Bloomberg News analysis of Gulf reaction to the state of play on Iran.

Last week, William Galston, who holds Brookings' Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies, wrote about the implications of Netanyahu’s speech, warning that “[t]he last thing he should want is a negative reception in the United States that fuels Israeli swing voters’ doubts about his capacity to manage Israel’s most important relationship.” And in his Washington Post column last week, Senior Fellow Robert Kagan argued that “there is no doubt that the precedent being set is a bad one” and regretted that “bringing a foreign leader before Congress to challenge a U.S. president’s policies…will be just another weapon in our bitter partisan struggle.”

And finally, for anyone wanting to see what our scholars were tweeting during Netanyahu’s speech, and reaction afterward, here’s a round-up.

       

       

       

       

The weakness of the economic recovery in advanced economies raises questions about the ability of new technologies to drive growth. After all, in the years since the global financial crisis, consumers in advanced economies have adopted new technologies such as mobile Internet services, and companies have invested in big data and cloud computing. More than 1 billion smartphones have been sold around the world, making it one of the most rapidly adopted technologies ever. Yet nations such as the United States that lead the world in technology adoption are seeing only middling GDP growth and continue to struggle with high unemployment.

There are many reasons for the restrained expansion, not least of which is the severity of the recession, which wiped out trillions of dollars of wealth and more than 7 million US jobs. Relatively weak consumer demand since the end of the recession in 2009 has restrained hiring and there are also structural issues at play, including a growing mismatch between the increasingly technical needs of employers and the skills available in the labor force. And technology itself plays a role: companies continue to invest in labor-saving technologies that reduce demand for less-skilled workers.

So are we witnessing a failure of technology? Our answer is "no." Over the longer term, in fact, we see that technology continues to drive productivity and growth, a pattern that has been evident since the Industrial Revolution; steam power, mass-produced steel, and electricity drove successive waves of growth, which has continued into the 21st century with semiconductors and the Internet. Today, we see a dozen rapidly-evolving technology areas that have the potential for economic disruption as well in the next decade. They fall into four groups: IT and how we use it; machines that work for us; energy; and the building blocks of everything (next-gen genomics and synthetic biology).

Wide ranging impacts

These disruptive technologies not only have potential for economic impact—hundreds of billions per year and even trillions for the applications we have sized—but also are broad-based (affecting many people and industries) and have transformative effects: they can alter the status quo and create opportunities for new competitors.

While these technologies will contribute to productivity and growth, we must look at economic impact in a broader sense, which includes measures of surplus created and value shifted (for instance from producers to consumers, which has been a common result of Internet adoption). The greatest benefit we measured for autonomous vehicles—cars and trucks that can proceed from point A to point B with little or no human intervention. The largest economic impact we sized for autonomous vehicles is the enormous benefit to consumers that may be possible by reducing accidents caused by human error by 70 to 90 percent. That could translate into hundreds of billions a year in economic value by 2025.

Predicting how quickly even the most disruptive technologies will affect productivity is difficult. When the first commercial microprocessor appeared there was no such thing as a microcomputer—marketers at Intel thought traffic signal controllers might be a leading application for their chip. Today we see that social technologies, which have changed how people interact with friends and family and have provided new ways for marketers to connect with consumers, may have a much larger impact as a way to raise productivity in organizations by improving communication, knowledge-sharing, and collaboration.

There are also lags and displacements as new technologies are adopted and their effects on productivity are felt. Over the next decade, advances in robotics may make it possible to automate assembly jobs that require more dexterity than machines have provided or are assumed to be more economical to carry out with low-cost labor. Advances in artificial intelligence, big data, and user interfaces (e.g., computers that can interpret ordinary speech) make it possible to automate many knowledge worker tasks.

More good than bad

There are clearly challenges for societies and economies as disruptive technologies take hold, but the long-term effects, we believe, will continue to be higher productivity and growth across sectors and nations. In earlier work, for example, we looked at the relationship between productivity and employment, which are generally believed to be in conflict (i.e., when productivity rises, employment falls). And clearly, in the short term this can happen as employers find that they can substitute machinery for labor—especially if other innovations in the economy do not create demand for labor in other areas. However, if you look at the data for productivity and employment for longer periods—over decades, for example—you see that productivity and job growth do rise in tandem.

This does not mean that labor-saving technologies do not cause dislocations, but they also eventually create new opportunities. For example, the development of highly flexible and adaptable robots will require skilled workers on the shop floor who can program these machines and work out new routines as requirements change. And the same types of tools that can be used to automate knowledge worker tasks such as finding information can also be used to augment the powers of knowledge workers, potentially creating new types of jobs.

Over the next decade it will become clearer how these technologies will be used to raise productivity and growth. There will be surprises along the way—when mass-produced steel became practical in the 19th century nobody could predict how it would enable the automobile industry in the 20th. And there will be societal challenges that policy makers will need to address, for example by making sure that educational systems keep up with the demands of the new technologies.

For business leaders the emergence of disruptive technologies can open up great new possibilities and can also lead to new threats—disruptive technologies have a habit of creating new competitors and undermining old business models. Incumbents will want to ensure their organizations continue to look forward and think long-term. Leaders themselves will need to know how technologies work and see to it that tech- and IT-savvy employees are included in every function and every team. Businesses and other institutions will need new skill sets and cannot assume that the talent they need will be available in the labor market.

       

Ahead of Tuesday’s primary elections in Ohio, Florida and other states, the 2016 presidential candidates have been talking about the future of Social Security and its funding shortfalls.

Over the next two decades, the money flowing into Social Security will be too little to pay for all promised benefits. The reserve fund will be exhausted soon after 2030, and the only money available to pay for benefits will be from taxes earmarked for the program. Unless Congress and the President change the law before the reserve is depleted, monthly benefits will have to be cut about 21%.

Needless to say, office holders, who must face voters, are unlikely to allow such a cut. Before the Trust Fund is depleted, lawmakers will agree to some combination of revenue increase and future benefit reduction, eliminating the need for a sudden 21% pension cut. The question is: what combination of revenue increases and benefit cuts does each candidate favor?

The candidate offering the most straightforward but least credible answer is Donald Trump. During the GOP presidential debate last week, he pledged to do everything within his power to leave Social Security “the way it is.” He says he can do this by making the nation rich again, by eliminating budget deficits, and by ridding government programs of waste, fraud, and abuse. In other words, he proposed to do nothing specifically to improve Social Security’s finances. Should Trump’s deal-making fail to make us rich again, he offered no back-up plan for funding benefits after 2034.

The other three GOP candidates proposed to repair Social Security by cutting future pensions. No one in the debate, except U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida, mentioned a specific way to accomplish this. Rubio’s plan is to raise the age for full retirement benefits. For many years, the full retirement age was 65. In a reform passed in 1983, the retirement age was gradually raised to 66 for people nearing retirement today and to 67 for people born after 1960. Rubio proposes to raise the retirement age to 68 for people who are now in their mid-40s and to 70 for workers who are his children’s age (all currently under 18 years old).

In his campaign literature, Rubio also proposes slowing the future rate of increase in monthly pensions for high-income seniors. However, by increasing the full retirement age, Rubio’s plan will cut monthly pensions for any worker who claims benefits at 62 years old. This is the earliest age at which workers can claim a reduced pension. Also, it is by far the most common age at which low-income seniors claim benefits. Recent research suggests that low-income workers have not shared the gains in life expectancy enjoyed by middle- and especially high-income workers, so Rubio’s proposed cut could seriously harm many low-income workers.

Though he didn’t advertise it in the debate, Sen. Ted Cruz favors raising the normal retirement age and trimming the annual cost-of-living adjustment in Social Security. In the long run, the latter reform will disproportionately cut the monthly pensions of the longest-living seniors. Many people, including me, think this is a questionable plan, because the oldest retirees are also the most likely to have used up their non-Social-Security savings. Finally, Cruz favors allowing workers to fund personal-account pensions with part of their Social Security contributions. Although the details of his plan are murky, if it is designed like earlier GOP privatization plans, it will have the effect of depriving Social Security of needed future revenues, making the funding gap even bigger than it is today.

The most revolutionary part of Cruz’s plan is his proposal to eliminate the payroll tax. For many decades, this has been the main source of Social Security revenue. Presumably, Cruz plans to fund pensions out of revenue from his proposed 10% flat tax and 16% value-added tax (VAT). This would represent a revolutionary change because up to now, Social Security has been largely financed out of its own dedicated revenue stream. By eliminating the independent funding stream, Cruz will sever the perceived link between workers’ contributions and the benefits they ultimately receive. Most observers agree with Franklin Roosevelt that the strong link between contributions and benefits is a vital source of the enduring popularity of the program. Social Security is an earned benefit for retirees rather than a welfare check.

Gov. John Kasich does not propose to boost the retirement age, but he does suggest slowing the growth in future pensions by linking workers’ initial pensions to price changes instead of wage changes. He hints he will impose a means test in calculating pensions, reducing the monthly pensions payable to retirees who have high current incomes. Many students of Social Security think this a bad idea, because it can discourage workers from saving for retirement.

All of the Republican candidates, except Trump, think Social Security’s salvation lies in lower benefit payouts. Nobody mentions higher contributions as part of the solution. In contrast, both Democratic candidates propose raising payroll or other taxes on workers who have incomes above the maximum earnings now subject to Social Security contributions. This reform enjoys broad support among voters, most of whom do not expect to pay higher taxes if the income limit on contributions is lifted. Sen. Bernie Sanders would immediately spend some of the extra revenue on benefit increases for current beneficiaries, but his proposed tax hike on high-income contributors would raise enough money to postpone the year of Trust Fund depletion by about 40 years. Hillary Clinton is less specific about the tax increases and benefit improvements she favors. Like Sanders, however, she would vigorously oppose benefit cuts.

None of the candidates has given us a detailed plan to eliminate Social Security’s funding imbalance. At this stage, it’s not obvious such a plan would be helpful, since the legislative debate to overhaul Social Security won’t begin anytime soon. Sanders has provided the most details about his policy intentions, but his actual plan is unlikely to receive much Congressional support without a massive political realignment. Cruz’s proposal, which calls for eliminating the Social Security payroll tax, also seems far outside the range of the politically feasible.

What we have learned from the GOP presidential debates so far is that Republican candidates, with the exception of Trump, favor balancing Social Security through future benefit cuts, possibly targeted on higher income workers, while Democratic candidates want to protect current benefit promises and will do so with tax hikes on high-income workers. There is no overlap in the two parties’ proposals, and this accounts for Washington’s failure to close Social Security’s funding gap.

Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared in Fortune.

       

       

The support for Bernie Sanders among young people has stirred a debate about the merits of the American style of a market economy versus the European version, and particularly the Nordic version of capitalism seen in Denmark.

Of course, the chances that Sanders will actually become president are remote and the chances of his enacting his program, if he were to become president, are even more remote. Still, the debate is an interesting one. David Brooks (writing in his New York Times column February 12, 2016) says that Denmark and similar economies in Europe are stagnant and lack the dynamism of America. Sanders’ supporters wrote in response, pointing to the strengths of Denmark: the absence of extreme poverty, the guaranty of good quality health care, and the availability of free college education.

Denmark gets a lot of things right. It provides universal health care of high quality at only a fraction of the cost of the U.S. system. Health outcomes are at least as good as in the United States with Danish wait-times similar to those we have here and infant mortality much lower. Denmark also does well in its primary and secondary education and in its labor market programs. They use tough love on those who are out of work, providing generous income support and training, but if they do not find a job or accept one that is found for them, the unemployed lose their benefits. The Danish “flexicurity” system is much admired because it combines a flexible labor market with income security. People are not guaranteed to keep the job they are in, but they are pretty much guaranteed that they can have a job.

Brooks is correct in pointing to the negative impact of very high tax rates on work. In the Nordic economies and in Germany, the employment rate is high but people work a lot fewer hours than workers in the U.S. On average, employed workers work 1,788 hours a year in the U.S. and only 1,438 in Denmark, and even less in Germany at 1,363, according to the OECD. Of course the Europeans are choosing to work shorter hours, but that choice is made in the face of very high taxes. Consider a busy professional couple in Denmark who want a renovation done to their home. They take home only a fraction of their salary after paying taxes and then they pay a plumber or an electrician to work on their house, and each of these tradespeople gets to keep only a fraction of what they charge for their services. The couple may find it is better to forget about the renovation, or hire people off the books to avoid the prohibitive double taxation.

In terms of innovation, Europe does not have the equivalent of Silicon Valley or the innovation hubs around Cambridge, Massachusetts, or the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. These creative centers generate innovations made in the U.S. that spread around the world and benefit everyone. Denmark is too small to sustain such centers by itself, but the problem extends to Europe more broadly, where policymakers struggle to match American innovation. Brooks is also correct about the danger of universal free college education. Those who graduate from four-year colleges will usually be in the upper half of the income distribution and should not expect to get a free ride from taxpayers who are making far less themselves. At the same time, creating broad financial support to allow children from low-income families to attend college while avoiding crippling debts is absolutely the right policy.

The U.S. is an exceptional country with a dynamic and successful economy. Europe would profit from copying the innovation culture of America. American capital markets, notwithstanding the financial crisis, are much more efficient than those in Europe and offer financial support and mentoring to start-up companies. Going the other way, America could learn about ways to retrain workers and avoid the desperate poverty that afflicts too many of our citizens. We could learn about the benefits of negotiating for lower prices from doctors, hospitals and drug companies. Whoever wins the White House should be secure in their belief about America’s strengths and vitality, while admitting that we can learn from what other countries do well.

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Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in Inside Sources. 

       

       

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On June 23, voters in the United Kingdom will go to the polls for a referendum on the country’s membership in the European Union. As one of the EU’s largest and wealthiest member states, Britain’s exit, or “Brexit”, would not only alter the U.K.’s institutional, political, and economic relationships, but would also send shock waves across the entire continent and beyond, with a possible Brexit fundamentally reshaping transatlantic relations.

On May 6, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings, in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America, the UK in a Changing Europe Initiative based at King's College London, and Wilton Park USA, will host a discussion to assess the range of implications that could result from the United Kingdom’s referendum. 

After each panel, the participants will take questions from the audience.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #UKReferendum

Audio

• Brexit—in or out? Implications of the United Kingdom’s referendum on EU membership

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20160506_uk_eu_brexit_transcript

       

       

       

       

       

Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey's new Prime Minister, is a familiar name in Western capitals. It is also a name that generates mixed feelings among his peers.

What most agree is that he is was an incredibly ambitious and hardworking foreign minister, always willing to travel wherever necessary, even when the outcome of such visits generated little concrete results. There is also consensus about his willingness to lecture his counterparts. He probably believed that his academic background and the relative ignorance of his counterparts entitled him to do so. But in most cases he had a tendency to forget that he was dealing with fellow foreign ministers and not students of history. This tendency generated only a begrudging sense of respect, even among his most graceful and objective peers.

It is also clear for people who knew him when he was an academic that politics has changed him. In the eyes of most his students, he was a reluctant policymaker when he began his political life. He often mentioned that his real goal was to go back to academia, where he could once again enjoy the intellectual life of an analytical thinker who can keep a healthy distance from events. Yet, in a matter of few years he discovered the irresistible pull of power. It was maybe "Kissinger syndrome" — realizing that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Perhaps most important is the question of Davutoğlu's ideology. There are numerous articles written about this question, and the emerging consensus is that he is an incurable idealist. It may be reductionist to argue that he is an Islamist, but it is undeniably true that he has focused on parts of the world where Muslims are facing injustice with much enthusiasm. Although he rejects being labeled neo-Ottoman, it is also undeniably true that he speaks of Ottoman tradition, tolerance and governance with great nostalgia. As most of his students, he is very critical of the West and its Orientalism. His years in Malaysia as a professor bring a colorful interpretation to his critic of colonialism and imperialism. Yet, what he often fails to realize is that in his criticisms of the West, he often repeats the methodological fallacy of Orientalism. The result is what can be best labeled "Occidentalism" — a tendency to generalize and construct a Western civilization with a prejudice similar to the one displayed by Orientalists.

Finally, there is the issue of missing modesty. Although Davutoğlu appears to be very modest and unpretentious, he often displays a stubborn resistance in admitting mistakes. This is perhaps a defense mechanism in dealing with the press. But combined with his unabashed sense of idealism, his reluctance to recognize failure and to see the world as it is rather than how it should be is very troubling for a policymaker. The reluctance to admit policy failures creates two major problems: a disconnect from reality and an inability for course-correction.

In short, there is a lot of ambivalence towards Davutoğlu in the West. He is coming to his new position with a lot of baggage and the looming shadow of a powerful president. Newly elected President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wanted someone who would follow his lead without hesitation. His choice speaks volumes about Davutoğlu's new persona and about how much he has changed since the early days of his political career.

This article was originally published in Today's Zaman.

      

       

       

       

       

       

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Despite the attention on the mid-term races, few elections are competitive. Electoral competition, already low at the national level, is in decline in state and primary elections as well. Reformers, who point to gerrymandering and a host of other targets for change, argue that improving competition will produce voters who are more interested in elections, better-informed on issues, and more likely to turn out to the polls.

On October 27, the Brookings Institution—in conjunction with the Cato Institute and The Pew Research Center—presented a discussion and a groundbreaking survey exploring the attitudes and opinions of voters in competitive and noncompetitive congressional districts. The survey, part of Pew's regular polling on voter attitudes, was conducted through the weekend of October 21. A series of questions explored the public's perceptions, knowledge, and opinions about electoral competitiveness.

The discussion also explored a publication that addresses the startling lack of competition in our democratic system. The Marketplace of Democracy: Electoral Competition and American Politics (Brookings, 2006), considers the historical development, legal background, and political aspects of a system that is supposed to be responsive and accountable, yet for many is becoming stagnant, self-perpetuating, and tone-deaf. Michael McDonald, editor and Brookings visiting fellow, moderated a discussion among co-editor John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute, and Andrew Kohut and Scott Keeter from The Pew Research Center, who also discussed the survey.

Transcript

• Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20061027
• 20061027ppt

      

If you're an upstanding U.S. citizen, you'll stand up and be counted this Election Day, right? Well, maybe not. Just because Americans can vote doesn't mean they do. But who shows up is what decides the tight races, which makes turnout one of the most closely watched aspects of every election -- and one that has fostered a number of myths. Here are five, debunked:

1. Thanks to increasing voter apathy, turnout keeps dwindling.

This is the mother of all turnout myths. There may be plenty of apathetic voters out there, but the idea that ever fewer Americans are showing up at the polls should be put to rest. What's really happening is that the number of people not eligible to vote is rising -- making it seem as though turnout is dropping.

Those who bemoan a decline in American civic society point to the drop in turnout from 55.2 percent in 1972, when 18-year-olds were granted the right to vote, to the low point of 48.9 percent in 1996. But that's looking at the total voting-age population, which includes lots of people who aren't eligible to vote -- namely, noncitizens and convicted felons. These ineligible populations have increased dramatically over the past three decades, from about 2 percent of the voting-age population in 1972 to 10 percent today.

When you take them out of the equation, the post-1972 "decline" vanishes. Turnout rates among those eligible to vote have averaged 55.3 percent in presidential elections and 39.4 percent in midterm elections for the past three decades. There has been variation, of course, with turnout as low as 51.7 percent in 1996 and rebounding to 60.3 percent by 2004. Turnout in the most recent election, in fact, is on a par with the low-60 percent turnout rates of the 1950s and '60s.

2. Other countries' higher turnout indicates more vibrant democracies.

You can't compare apples and oranges. Voting rules differ from nation to nation, producing different turnout rates. Some countries have mandatory voting. If Americans were fined $100 for playing voter hooky on Election Day, U.S. participation might increase dramatically. But in fact, many people with a ballot pointed at their head simply cast a blank one or a nonsense vote for Mickey Mouse.

Moreover, most countries have national elections maybe once every five years; the United States has presidential or congressional elections every two years. Frequent elections may lead to voter fatigue. New European Union elections, for instance, seem to be depressing turnout in member countries. After decades of trailing turnout in the United Kingdom, U.S. turnout in 2004 was on a par with recent British elections, in which turnout was 59.4 percent in 2001 and 61.4 percent in 2005.

Americans are asked to vote more often -- in national, state, local and primary contests -- than the citizens of any other country. They can be forgiven for missing one or two elections, can't they? Even then, over the course of several elections, Americans have more chances to participate and their turnout may be higher than that in countries where people vote only once every five years.

3. Negative ads turn off voters and reduce turnout.

Don't be so sure. The case on this one is still open. Negative TV advertising increased in the mid-1980s, but turnout hasn't gone down correspondingly. The negative Swift boat campaign against Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) apparently did little to depress turnout in the 2004 presidential race.

Some academic studies have found that negative advertising increases turnout. And that's not so surprising: A particularly nasty ad grabs people's attention and gets them talking. People participate when they're interested. A recent GOP attack ad on Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.), a Senate candidate, has changed the dynamic of the race, probably not because it changed minds or dissuaded Democrats, but because it energized listless Republicans.

We'll have to wait to see whether the attack on Ford backfires because voters perceive it as unfair. That's the danger of going negative. So campaigns tend to stick to "contrast ads," in which candidates contrast their records with those of their opponents. When people see stark differences between candidates, they're more likely to vote.

4. The Republican "72-hour campaign" will win the election.

Not necessarily. You can lead citizens to the ballot, but you can't make them vote.

Republicans supposedly have a super-sophisticated last-minute get-out-the-vote effort that identifies voters who'll be pivotal in electing their candidates. Studies of a campaign's personal contact with voters through phone calls, door-to-door solicitation and the like find that it does have some positive effect on turnout. But people vote for many reasons other than meeting a campaign worker, such as the issues, the closeness of the election and the candidates' likeability. Further, these studies focus on get-out-the-vote drives in low-turnout elections, when contacts from other campaigns and outside groups are minimal. We don't know what the effects of mobilization drives are in highly competitive races in which people are bombarded by media stories, television ads and direct mail.

Republican get-out-the-vote efforts could make a difference in close elections if Democrats simply sat on the sidelines. But this year Democrats have vowed to match the GOP mobilization voter for voter. So it'll take more than just knowing whether a prospective voter owns a Volvo or a BMW for Republicans to eke out victory in a competitive race.

5. Making voter registration easier would dramatically increase turnout.

Well, yes and no.

In 1993, the Democratic government in Washington enacted "Motor Voter," a program that allowed people to register to vote when they received their driver's license or visited a welfare office. Democrats thought that if everyone were registered, turnout rates would increase -- by as much as 7 percentage points.

But while many people registered to vote, turnout didn't go up much. Subsequent studies found only small increases in turnout attributable to Motor Voter, perhaps 2 percentage points.

Sizable increases in turnout can be seen in states with Election Day registration, which allows people to register when they vote. This may be related to the fact that lots of people don't make up their minds to vote until Election Day, rather than months in advance when they get a license.

      

On November 7, millions of Americans will exercise their civic duty to vote. At stake will be control of the House and Senate, not to mention the success of individual candidates running for office. President Bush's "stay the course" agenda will either be enabled over the next two years by a Republican Congress or knocked off kilter by a Democratic one.

With so much at stake, it is not surprising that the Pew Research Center found that 51 percent of registered voters have given a lot of thought to this November's election. This is higher than any other recent midterm election, including 44 percent in 1994, the year Republicans took control of the House. If so, turnout should better the 1994 turnout rate among eligible voters of 41 percent.

There is good reason to suspect that despite the high interest, turnout will not exceed 1994. The problem is that a national poll is, well, a national poll, and does not measure attitudes of voters within states and districts.

People vote when there is a reason to do so. Republican and Democratic agendas are in stark contrast on important issues, but voters also need to believe that their vote will matter in deciding who will represent them. It is here that the American electoral system is broken for many voters.

Voters have little choice in most elections. In 1994, Congressional Quarterly called 98 House elections as competitive. Today, they list 51. To put it another way, we are already fairly confident of the winner in nearly 90 percent of House races. Although there is no similar tracking for state legislative offices, we know that the number of elections won by less than 60 percent of the vote has fallen since 1994.

The real damage to the national turnout rate is in the large states of California and New York, which together account for 17 percent of the country's eligible voters. Neither state has a competitive Senate or Governor's election, and few competitive House or state legislative races. Compare to 1994, when Californians participated in competitive Senate and governor races the state's turnout was 5 percentage points above the national rate. The same year New York's competitive governor's race helped boost turnout a point above the national rate.

Lacking stimulation from two of the largest states, turnout boosts will have to come from elsewhere. Texas has an interesting four-way governor's race that might draw from infrequent voters to the polls. Ohio's competitive Senate race and some House races might also draw voters. However, in other large states like Florida, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania, turnout will suffer from largely uncompetitive statewide races.

The national turnout rate will likely be less than 1994 and fall shy of 40 percent. This is not to say that turnout will be poor everywhere. Energized voters in Connecticut get to vote in an interesting Senate race and three of five Connecticut House seats are up for grabs. The problem is that turnout will be localized in these few areas of competition.

The fault is not on the voters; people's lives are busy, and a rational person will abstain when their vote does not matter to the election outcome. The political parties also are sensitive to competition and focus their limited resources where elections are competitive. Television advertising and other mobilizing efforts by campaigns will only be found in competitive races.

The old adage of "build it and they will come" is relevant. All but hardcore sports fans tune out a blowout. Building competitive elections -- and giving voters real choices -- will do much to increase voter turnout in American politics. There are a number of reforms on the table: redistricting to create competitive districts, campaign financing to give candidates equal resources, and even altering the electoral system to fundamentally change how a vote elects representatives. If voters want choice and a government more responsive to their needs, they should consider how these seemingly arcane election procedures have real consequences on motivating them to do the most fundamental democratic action: vote.

      

Senator Barack Obama’s Iowa victory has been largely attributed to his success among young voters.  According to the entrance polls, not only did he win an outright majority of the youth vote, the 24-and-under crowd also turned out to vote with unusual strength.

Can he do it again in New Hampshire and beyond?

The Iowa caucuses are unusual in three key respects when it comes to mobilization of young voters and their influence on the election outcome.

First, Obama and the other candidates have spent the last year building impressive organizations within Iowa to mobilize their supporters.  In this decade, campaigns have retooled their get-out-the-vote efforts to emphasize person-to-person contact, which has been demonstrated to significantly increase turnout among all voters.  Turnout in both parties’ caucuses—particularly the record 236,000 on the Democratic side—benefited from peaked voter interest and this new campaign tactic.

Unlike previous efforts to mobilize young voters by concerts and celebrities, young voters are particularly energized when encouraged to vote by their peers.  Obama’s campaign specifically tailored mobilization efforts to young voters.  It clearly worked, as the youth were a larger share of caucus attendees than they were four years ago.

Second, the caucuses occur in the evening when people with families, and/or working night shifts, are unable to participate.  The caucuses favor turnout among people who have time on their hands, like students who have yet to return to college from their winter break. 

Third, despite the historically high turnout on the Democratic side of the Iowa caucuses, the caucuses are still low-turnout affairs, with only about 16 percent of eligible Iowans participating on January 3.  Where organization and time can galvanize youth relative to other Iowa caucus attendees, it is highly unlikely that young voters will be as large a share of the electorate in primary states like New Hampshire where more people participate simply because voting is less burdensome.

These factors suggest that Obama will be disadvantaged in upcoming elections. 

But surprisingly, no; it is Hillary Clinton who will be disadvantaged because of the age of her supporters.

Where Obama’s support comes from the youth, Clinton’s comes from the elderly.  She was just shy of winning a majority of their vote in the Iowa caucuses.

Like the youth, the elderly also traditionally constitute a larger share of Iowa caucus attendees than of primary voters.  Older Americans are habitual voters and have time on their hands.

When candidate support among the different ages of Iowa caucus attendees are applied to the age distribution of the 2004 New Hampshire Democratic primary electorate, support for Obama and John Edwards rises, while support for Clinton actually decreases. 

Obama’s strength among people in their 30’s—a demographic he also won—will likely pack a larger wallop among the larger New Hampshire electorate, offsetting the youth’s lower share of the electorate.

Edwards, who eked out a win among middle-aged voters, benefits from their higher turnout. Edward's attacks on Clinton following Iowa make strategic sense. He believes that if he can become the alternative to Obama, Clinton's older supporters will flock to him, setting up all out generational war on the Democratic side.

Clinton sees her elderly support base diminish, and it is not replenished with fresh voters elsewhere.

Of course, the situation is still fluid.  2008 is not 2004, New Hampshire is not Iowa and we have yet to see where Joe Biden’s and Chris Dodd’s supporters go now that those contenders are out. 

Yet, Obama’s eggs are not all in one basket.  He does not need to rely on young voters solely to win New Hampshire; he just needs them to be as animated as they were in Iowa to add to his support among their slightly older peers. 

On the Republican side, we have to look back eight years to the last contested Republican nomination to understand what increased youth turnout means to the election outcome. It does not appear to be much. The age profile of the Republican Iowa 2000 electorate looks similar to that of 2008, with the exception that the 2008 Republican electorate is more middle-aged. When the Republican contest moved from the Iowa caucuses to the New Hampshire primary in 2000, the age profile remained relatively steady with the exception that the share of the electorate of those in their 30's increased while those 60 and older decreased.

Mike Huckabee won every age demographic category in 2008, but so did George W. Bush in 2000. John McCain came roaring back from an Iowa fifth place finish in 2000 to win New Hampshire and is poised to do so again. The difference between Iowa and New Hampshire Republican electorates is more about their ideologies rather than their ages.

There may still be something to learn from the age distribution of support for the Republican candidates. McCain drew his support in 2000 and from middle-aged and older voters, who together will likely make up a majority of the New Hampshire Republican electorate. Will he do it again in 2008?

Looking past Huckabee's Iowa's support, McCain and Mitt Romney both drew more support from older voters. There are thus three candidates vying for votes from older New Hampshire independents, who may choose to vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary: McCain, Romney, and Clinton. This may favor Obama, too, as his independent supporters are not faced with the same difficult choice of which primary to vote in as Clinton's are.

      

Event Information

As the recent primary in Delaware attests, this year's midterm elections continue to offer unexpected twists and raise large questions. Will the Republicans take over the House and possibly the Senate? Or has the Republican wave ebbed? What role will President Obama play in rallying seemingly dispirited Democrats -- and what effect will reaction to the sluggish economy play in rallying Republicans? Is the Tea Party more an asset or a liability to the G.O.P.'s hopes? What effect will the inevitably narrowed partisan majorities have in the last two year's of Obama's first term? And how will contests for governorships and state legislatures around the nation affect redistricting and the shape of politics to come?

On October 4, a panel of Brookings Governance Studies scholars, moderated by Senior Fellow E.J. Dionne, Jr., attempted to answer these questions. Senior Fellow Thomas Mann provided an overview. Senior Fellow Sarah Binder discussed congressional dynamics under shrunken majorities or divided government. Senior Fellow William Galston offered his views on the administration’s policy prospects during the 112th Congress. Nonresident Senior Fellow Michael McDonald addressed electoral reapportionment and redistricting around the country.

Video

• Partisan Gridlock post-Elections?
• GOP Influence over Redistricting, Reapportionment
• Working Within Divided Government
• Good Conditions for GOP in 2010 Midterms

Audio

• Midterm Elections 2010: Driving Forces, Likely Outcomes, Possible Consequences

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20101004_midterm_elections

       

Editors Note: This post is an extended version of a previous post.

Cozzens, Susan and Dhanaraj Thakur (Eds). 2014. Innovation and Inequality: Emerging technologies in an unequal world. Northampton, Massachusetts: Edward Elgar.

Historically, the debate on innovation has focused on the determinants of the pace of innovation—on the premise that innovation is the driver of long-term economic growth. Analysts and policymakers have taken less interest on how innovation-based growth affects income distribution. Less attention even has received the question of how innovation affects other forms of inequality such as economic opportunity, social mobility, access to education, healthcare, and legal representation, or inequalities in exposure to insalubrious environments, be these physical (through exposure to polluted air, water, food or harmful work conditions) or social (neighborhoods ridden with violence and crime). The relation between innovation, equal political representation and the right for people to have a say in the collective decisions that affect their lives can also be added to the list of neglect.

But neglect has not been universal. A small but growing group of analysts have been working for at least three decades to produce a more careful picture of the relationship between innovation and the economy. A distinguished vanguard of this group has recently published a collection of case studies that illuminates our understanding of innovation and inequality—which is the title of the book. The book is edited by Susan Cozzens and Dhanaraj Thakur. Cozzens is a professor in the School of Public Policy and Vice Provost of Academic Affairs at Georgia Tech. She has studied innovation and inequality long before inequality was a hot topic and led the group that collaborated on this book. Thakur is a faculty member of the school College of Public Service and Urban Affairs at Tennessee State University (while writing the book he taught at the University of West Indies in Jamaica). He is an original and sensible voice in the study of social dimensions of communication technologies.

We’d like to highlight here three aspects of the book: the research design, the empirical focus, and the conceptual framework developed from the case studies in the book.

Edited volumes are all too often a collection of disparate papers, but not in this case. This book is patently the product of a research design that probes the evolution of a set of technologies across a wide variety of national settings and, at the same time, it examines the different reactions to new technologies within specific countries. The second part of the book devotes five chapters to study five emerging technologies—recombinant insulin, genetically modified corn, mobile phones, open-source software, and tissue culture—observing the contrasts and similarities of their evolution in different national environments. In turn, part three considers the experience of eight countries, four of high income—Canada, Germany, Malta, and the U.S.—and four of medium or low income—Argentina, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Mozambique. The stories in part three tell how these countries assimilated these diverse technologies into to their economies and policy environments.

The second aspect to highlight is the deliberate choice of elements for empirical focus. First, the object of inquiry is not all of technology but a discreet set of emerging technologies gaining a specificity that would otherwise be negated if they were to handle the unwieldy concept of “technology” broadly construed. At the same time, this choice reveals the policy orientation of the book because these new entrants have just started to shape the socio-technical spaces they inhabit while the spaces of older technologies have likely ossified. Second, the study offers ample variance in terms of jurisdictions under study, i.e. countries of all income levels; a decision that makes at the same time theory construction more difficult and the test of general premises more robust.[i] We can add that the book avoids sweeping generalizations. Third, they focus on technological projects and their champions, a choice that increases the rigor of the empirical analysis. This choice, naturally, narrows the space of generality but the lessons are more precise and the conjectures are presented with according modesty. The combination of a solid design and clear empirical focus allow the reader to obtain a sense of general insight from the cases taken together that could not be derived from any individual case standing alone.

Economic and technology historians have tackled the effects of technological advancement, from the steam engine to the Internet, but those lessons are not easily applicable to the present because emerging technologies intimate at a different kind of reconfiguration of economic and social structures. It is still too early to know the long-term effects of new technologies like genetically modified crops or mobile phone cash-transfers, but this book does a good job providing useful concepts that begin to form an analytical framework. In addition, the mix of country case studies subverts the disciplinary separation between the economics of innovation (devoted mostly to high-income countries) and development studies (interested in middle and low income economies). As a consequence of these selections, the reader can draw lessons that are likely to apply to technologies and countries other than the ones discussed in this book.

The third aspect we would like to underscore in this review is the conceptual framework. Cozzens, Thakur and their colleagues have done a service to anyone interested in pursuing the empirical and theoretical analysis of innovation and inequality.

For these authors, income distribution is only one part of the puzzle. They observe that inequalities are also part of social, ethnic, and gender cleavages in society. Frances Stewart, from Oxford University, introduced the notion of horizontal inequalities or inequalities at the social group level (for instance, across ethnic groups or genders). She developed the concept to contrast vertical inequalities or inequalities operating at the individual level (such as household income or wealth). The authors of this book borrow Stewart’s concept and pay attention to horizontal inequalities in the technologies they examine and observe that new technologies enter marketplaces that are already configured under historical forms of exclusion. A dramatic example is the lack of access to recombinant insulin in the U.S., because it is expensive and minorities are less likely to have health insurance (see Table 3.1 in p. 80).[ii] Another example is how innovation opens opportunities for entrepreneurs but closes them for women in cultures that systematically exclude women from entrepreneurial activities.

Another key concept is that of complementary assets. A poignant example is the failure of recombinant insulin to reach poor patients in Mozambique who are sent home with old medicine even though insulin is subsidized by the government. The reason why doctors deny the poor the new treatment is that they don’t have the literacy and household resources (e.g. a refrigerator, a clock) necessary to preserve the shots, inject themselves periodically, and read sugar blood levels. Technologies aimed at fighting poverty require complementary assets to be already in place and in the absence of them, they fail to mitigate suffering and ultimately ameliorate inequality. Another illustration of the importance of complementary assets is given by the case of Open Source Software. This technology has a nominal price of zero; however, only individuals who have computers and the time, disposition, and resources to learn how to use open source operative systems benefit. Likewise, companies without the internal resources to adapt open software will not adopt it and remain economically tied to proprietary software.

These observations lead to two critical concepts elaborated in the book: distributional boundaries and the inequalities across technological transitions. Distributional boundaries refer to the reach of the benefits of new technologies, boundaries that could be geographic (as in urban/suburban or center/periphery) or across social cleavages or incomes levels. Standard models of technological diffusion assume the entire population will gradually adopt a new technology, but in reality the authors observe several factors intervene in limiting the scope of diffusion to certain groups. The most insidious factors are monopolies that exercise sufficient control over markets to levy high prices. In these markets, the price becomes an exclusionary barrier to diffusion. This is quite evident in the case of mobile phones (see table 5.1, p. 128) where monopolies (or oligopolies) have market power to create and maintain a distributional boundary between post-pay and high-quality for middle and high income clients and pre-pay and low-quality for poor customers. This boundary renders pre-pay plans doubly regressive because the per-minute rates are higher than post-pay and phone expenses represent a far larger percentage in poor people’s income. Another example of exclusion happens in GMOs because in some countries subsistence farmers cannot afford the prices for engineering seeds; a disadvantage that compounds to their cost and health problems as they have to use more and stronger pesticides.

A technological transition, as used here, is an inflection point in the adoption of a technology that re-shapes its distributional boundaries. When smart phones were introduced, a new market for second-hand or hand-down phones was created in Maputo; people who could not access the top technology get stuck with a sub-par system. By looking at tissue culture they find that “whether it provides benefits to small farmers as well as large ones depends crucially on public interventions in the lower-income countries in our study” (p. 190). In fact, farmers in Costa Rica enjoy much better protections compare to those in Jamaica and Mozambique because the governmental program created to support banana tissue culture was designed and implemented as an extension program aimed at disseminating know-how among small-farmers and not exclusively to large multinational-owned farms. When introducing the same technology, because of this different policy environment, the distributional boundaries were made much more extensive in Costa Rica.

This is a book devoted to present the complexity of the innovation-inequality link. The authors are generous in their descriptions, punctilious in the analysis of their case studies, and cautious and measured in their conclusions. Readers who seek an overarching theory of inequality, a simple story, or a test of causality, are bound to be disappointed. But those readers may find the highest reward from carefully reading all the case studies presented in this book, not only because of the edifying richness of the detail herein but also because they will be invited to rethink the proper way to understand and address the problem of inequality.[iii]
 

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Federal departments and agencies received just above $133 billion in R&D funds in 2013. To put that figure in perspective, World Bank data for 2013 shows that, 130 countries had a GDP below that level; U.S. R&D is larger than the entire economy of 60 percent of all countries in the world.

The chart below shows how those funds are allocated among the most important federal departments and agencies in terms of R&D.

Those looking at these figures for the first time may be surprised to see that the Department of Defense takes about half of the pie. It should be noted however that not all federal R&D is destined to preserve U.S. military preeminence in the world. From non-defense research, 42 percent is destined to the much-needed research conducted by the National Institutes of Health, 17 percent to the research of the Department of Energy—owner of 17 celebrated national laboratories—16 percent for space exploration, and 8 percent for understanding the natural and social worlds at a fundamental level. The balance category is only lumped together for visual display not for its importance; it includes for instance the significant work of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Despite the impressive size of defense R&D, we hear little about it. While much of defense research and development is classified, in time, civilian applications find their way into mainstream commercial uses—the Internet and GPS emerged from research done at DARPA. Far more visible than defense R&D is biomedical research, clean energy research, or news about truly impressive discoveries either in distant galaxies or in the depths of our oceans.

What produces this asymmetry of visibility of federal R&D work?

In a recent Brookings paper, a colleague and I suggest that the answer lies in the prominence of R&D in the agencies’ accounting books. In short: How visible is R&D and how much the agency seeks to discuss it in public fora depends not on the relative importance, but on how large a portion of the agency’s budget is dedicated to R&D.

From a budget perspective, we identified two types of agencies performing R&D: those agencies whose main mission is to perform research and development, and those agencies that perform many functions in addition to R&D. For the former, the share of R&D in the discretionary budget is consistently high, while for the latter group, R&D is only a small part of their total budget (see the chart below). This distinction influences how agencies will argue for their R&D money, because they will make their case on the most important uses of their budget. If agencies have a low R&D share, they will keep it mixed with other functions and programs; for instance, research efforts will be justified only as supporting the main agency mission. In turn, agencies with a high R&D share must argue for their budgets highlighting the social outcomes of their work. These include three agencies whose primary mission is research (NASA, NSF, NIH), and a fourth (DoE) where research is a significant element of its mission.

There is little question that the four agencies with high R&D share produce greatly beneficial research for society. Their strategy of promoting their work publicly is not only smart budget politics but also civic and pedagogical in the sense of helping taxpayers understand that their tax dollars are well-spent. However, it is interesting to observe that other agencies may be producing research of equal social impact that flies under the public radar, mainly because those agencies prefer as a matter of good budget policy to keep a low profile for their R&D work.

One interesting conclusion for institutional design from this analysis is that promoting a research agency to the level of departments of government or its director to a cabinet rank position may bring prominence to its research, not because more and better research will necessarily get done but simply because that agency will seek public recognition for their work in order to justify its budget. Likewise, placing a research agency within a larger department may help conceal and protect their R&D funding; the politics of the department will focus on its main goals and R&D would recede to a concern of secondary interest in political battles.

In the Politics of Federal R&D we discuss in more detail the changing politics of budget and how R&D agencies can respond. The general strategies of concealment and self-promotion are likely to become more important for agencies to protect a steady growth of their research and development budgets.

Data sources: R&D data from the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences historical trends in Federal R&D. Total non-discretionary spending by federal agency from the Office of Management and Budget.

       

       

       

       

       

Editors’ Note: Though our allies could do more, the United States benefits not just from military spending, write Kathleen Hicks and Michael O’Hanlon. U.S. allies are not just an advantage for America; they also are the central characteristic of its global leadership. This post originally appeared on USA Today.

Donald Trump questions the value of America's alliances, and at one level it must be acknowledged that he has a point. There is not enough burden-sharing.

Most starkly, the United States spends 3 percent of gross domestic product on its armed forces, while the rest of NATO averages 1.4 percent of GDP even after agreeing formally to a 2 percent target. And the consequences are natural—for example, at the peak of the Afghanistan war, the U.S. provided 100,000 troops to the mission while the rest of NATO managed only about 35,000.

[W]hatever the imperfections of America's allies, it is unconvincing to view them as a drain on the country.

But whatever the imperfections of America's allies, it is unconvincing to view them as a drain on the country. On balance, they are not just an advantage for America; they also are the central characteristic of its global leadership. Russia and China are blessed with the likes of Belarus and North Korea as their formal security partners. Meanwhile, America has nearly 60, most of them among the world's dominant technological and economic powers. Two-thirds of global GDP and two-thirds of global military spending is found within the broad, U.S.-led Western security coalition. This is unprecedented in the history of the world, especially in the absence of a clear agreed threat that would motivate such an alignment.

The stakes are very high. Trump is apparently willing to disband NATO as well as our key Asian alliances, and to withdraw from the Middle East as well—a "Trexit." At risk is a core principle of America's post-World War II strategy—that trying to stay out of others’ business did not work and, in fact, helped lead to the world wars. Trump in particular seems to reject the core elements of America’s strengths in the world market and international security system. With the tumult roiling Europe today, it is worth reviewing the basics on why our unparalleled alliance structure pays off.

Allies are not all alike. Although our Western European allies generally under-invest in common defense objectives, our Middle East partners and several in Asia do far better. The Middle East allies spend considerably more than the NATO members; South Korea comes in at about 2.5 percent, with Australia at 2 percent. Moreover, contrary to conventional wisdom, the U.S. does not squander huge sums of money basing troops on the territories of its wealthy allies. According to RAND analyses and our own estimates, it costs less than $10 billion a year to keep U.S. forces in key industrial nations. That amounts to less than 2 percent of the defense budget. And of that nearly $10 billion, half or more is paid by the host nations themselves.

Moreover, basing those U.S. forces abroad can be more efficient than keeping them at home, allowing a modestly smaller force to do the same job in some cases (as with the aircraft carrier based in Japan, for example)—saving substantially more than $10 billion annually, in fact.

Military might and spending are not the only measure of alliance contributions to security. It is worth remembering that many wealthy allies spend a lot more of their national wealth on development aid and refugee resettlement than does the United States—on average, in the range of 0.5 percent of GDP more than we do, which is real money even measured against the sizes of our military budgets. NATO allies also commit much more to United Nations peacekeeping missions than we do—roughly 10,000 troops, plus or minus, in recent decades. While they did not match us in Afghanistan, they collectively suffered more than 1,000 fatalities and have stuck with the mission for 15 long, hard years.

Those who question the basic value of our alliances or engagement overseas go too far.

Nor is it all about military power. European members of NATO are absorbing the greatest costs and risks in applying sanctions on Russia over its behavior in Ukraine. The U.S. tally is not even a 10th of the European Union's Russian trade. Europe was also collectively crucial in applying sanctions on Iran.

Perhaps this would have happened anyway, without NATO, in the world Trump wants to create. Perhaps not.

It would be a different matter if America had lots of allies that went around causing wars and then expecting U.S. GIs and taxpayers to bail their chestnuts out of the fire once they overreached.

But that is not the case. Since the creation of the U.S. post-World War II alliance system, those few interstate wars that have happened have largely been caused by neutral or adversarial states—North Korea attacking South Korea, Arab states attacking Israel (in the days before many of the former became security partners with the United States), Iraq attacking Iran and Kuwait, China and Vietnam throwing their weight around their neighborhoods in earlier Cold War decades, and Russian President Vladimir Putin redrawing borders in Europe (after decades of the Soviet Union drawing an Iron Curtain across Europe).

In those rare cases where U.S. allies did employ force, as with Pakistan attacking India in earlier eras, or the British and French acting in former colonial states, it was generally understood that America would not help them, and we didn’t.

There are valid critiques about alliance burden-sharing, many of which are universally shared by foreign policy practitioners. Even so, the verdict is simple: Those who question the basic value of our alliances or engagement overseas go too far. In so doing, they distort the big picture. On balance, America’s alliances help this country undergird a global security system that has dramatically reduced the prevalence of war between nations in modern times, while currently costing the country only 3 percent of GDP.

A Trexit would be a disaster for Americans. To paraphrase Trump himself, our international security posture is a very good investment—and one that the U.S. global system of alliances does much to make possible.

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

Now that that the initial revelations regarding the VW scandal have sunk in it’s time to begin assessing the larger significance of those revelations. While the case and, we predict, VW, will continue for years (we are only at the end of the beginning, and far from the beginning of the end), we are far enough along to see five large questions emerging. These questions will tell us much about the economic, corporate and cultural future of VW and German enterprise. 

1) VW was an integral component of Germany's industrial reputation in Europe, across the Atlantic in the United States, and around the world. Now, that hard-won reputation is at risk. How broad will the damage be to German businesses' reputation not just for quality, but for "premium quality?"

2) Turning from the German business sector to the German economy as a whole, the VW scandal has many ironies, not least of which is that the company was a key driver (so to speak) of the famous German Wirthschaftswunder. Economic health propelled a vanquished Germany to the forefront of Europe’s post-WWII recovery and then made post-Cold War reunification a success. Does the VW scandal have the potential to slow down the overall growth of the German economy, and what are the European and global implications of that at a time when the Chinese economy is also sputtering?

3) From a corporate governance perspective, the scandal represents some of the most boneheaded thinking ever. Following disclosure of the fraud, €14bn (£10bn; $15.6bn) was wiped off VW's stock market value. Whoever knew/orchestrated the scheme thought they would get away with it, but did they really not foresee the consequences or even the likelihood of getting caught? We will long be studying the abnormal “fraud psychology" of this case.

4) Germany ranks among the top ten countries for low corruption according to Transparency International. Yet VW is not alone among German companies in making major headlines with massive ethics failures in recent years, joining Siemens, Bayer, Deutsche Bank, and many others. What does this mean for the future of Germany’s role as a force for anti-corruption at home and internationally?

5) Former VW CEO Winterkorn resigned but claimed he knew nothing about the scandal. What does this say about the structure and management culture of Germany’s largest companies? How widespread is “plausible deniability” in German business culture--and in all business culture everywhere? If so, what are the dangers of this going forward, and what should be done to address them?

      

The European Union (EU) is confronting a series of potentially existential threats, including the refugee crisis, ISIS terror, Russian adventurism, and Brexit (the potential exit of the U.K. from the EU).  I hosted Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka at Brookings to get his fundamentally (but carefully) optimistic take on how he and his fellow EU leaders can meet those challenges. Here are five reasons for optimism that emerged from our conversation: 

1. Take the Fight to Daesh.  The PM made clear Europe’s determination to take on the terror and refugee issues at their source in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.  Just this week, the Czech Republic upped its commitment to the international coalition, announcing that it will send a team to train Iraqis using U.S. made L-159 fighter jets (also sold to Iraq by Prague).  With transatlantic leadership, these efforts are starting to bear fruit in the decay of ISIS.
2. Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste. As part of addressing today’s refugee crisis, Europe is exploring multi-lateral efforts to construct a common European border service, integrate refugee populations, and promote internal security.  The process is painful, but filling these gaps will make the European Union stronger.
3. Stand Strong With Ukraine.  Some predicted that European unity against Putin’s expansionism would not hold.  Instead, the EU and the United States have maintained their resolve in enacting sanctions.  That has strengthened the EU, but as the PM pointed out, now Ukraine and its supporters must make sure that state moves towards good governance and functionality. 
4. Taking the Exit Out of Brexit.  The PM predicted that the U.K. would not exit the EU.  When I pressed him on why, he acknowledged that there were elements of wishing and hoping in that forecast, and that the vote comes at a tough moment.  But I share the PM’s hopes—the U.K. is not one to leave friends when times get tough.
5. Never Forget to Remember.  The PM and I spent a lot of time discussing the ups and downs of Central Europe’s experiment with democracy over the past century.  He and his Czech colleagues—of all mainstream political parties—are acutely aware of that history, and that too gives me hope that it will not be repeated.

Immense challenges can destabilize and divide—but they also present opportunities for new collaboration and cohesion. If addressed in partnership, Europe’s current trials can ultimately strengthen the ties that bind the EU together.  

Watch the full discussion here.

Andrew Kenealy contributed to this post. 

       

How has the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—signed between the P5+1 and Iran one year ago—played out in practice? Several Brookings scholars, many of whom participated prominently in debates last year surrounding official congressional review, offered their views.

Strobe Talbott, President, Brookings Institution: At the one-year mark, it’s clear that the nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers has substantially restricted Tehran’s ability to produce the fissile material necessary to build a bomb. That’s a net positive—for the United States and the broader region.

Robert Einhorn, Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Senior Fellow, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Foreign Policy program: One year after its conclusion, the JCPOA remains controversial in Tehran and Washington (as I describe in more detail here), with opponents unreconciled to the deal and determined to derail it. But opponents have had to scale back their criticism, in large part because the JCPOA, at least so far, has delivered on its principal goal—blocking Iran’s path to nuclear weapons for an extended period of time. Moreover, Iran’s positive compliance record has not given opponents much ammunition. The IAEA found Iran in compliance in its two quarterly reports issued in 2016. But challenges to the smooth operation and even the longevity of the deal are already apparent. A real threat to the JCPOA is that Iran will blame the slow recovery of its economy on U.S. failure to conscientiously fulfill its sanctions relief commitments and, using that as a pretext, will curtail or even end its own implementation of the deal. But international banks and businesses have been reluctant to engage Iran not because they have been discouraged by the United States but because they have their own business-related reasons to be cautious. Legislation proposed in Congress could also threaten the nuclear deal.  For now, the administration is in a position to block new legislation that it believes would scuttle the deal. But developments outside the JCPOA, especially Iran’s regional behavior and its crackdown on dissent at home, could weaken support for the JCPOA within the United States and give proponents of deal-killing legislation a boost.  A potential wildcard for the future of the JCPOA is coming governing transitions in both Washington and Tehran. Hillary Clinton would maintain the deal but perhaps a harder line than her predecessor. Donald Trump now says he will re-negotiate rather than scrap the deal, but a better deal will not prove negotiable. With President Hassan Rouhani up for re-election next year and the health of the Supreme Leader questionable, Iran’s future policy toward the JCPOA cannot be confidently predicted. A final verdict on the JCPOA is many years away. But it is off to a promising start, as even some of its early critics now concede. Still, it is already clear that the path ahead will not always be smooth, the longevity of the deal cannot be taken for granted, and keeping it on track will require constant focus in Washington and other interested capitals.

Suzanne Maloney, Deputy Director, Foreign Policy program and Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has fulfilled neither the worst fears of its detractors nor the most soaring ambitions of its proponents. All of the concerns that have shaped U.S. policy toward Tehran for more than a generation—terrorism, human rights abuses, weapons of mass destruction, regional destabilization—remain as relevant, and as alarming, as they have ever been. Notably, much the same is true on the Iranian side; the manifold grievances that Tehran has harbored toward Washington since the 1979 revolution continue to smolder. An important truth about the JCPOA, which has been wielded by both its defenders and its detractors in varying contexts, is that it was transactional, not transformational. As President Barack Obama repeatedly insisted, the accord addressed one specific problem, and in those narrow terms, it can be judged a relative success. The value of that relative success should not be underestimated; a nuclear-armed Iran would magnify risks in a turbulent region in a terrible way.  But in the United States, in Iran, and across the Middle East, the agreement has always been viewed through a much broader lens—as a waystation toward Iranian-American rapprochement, as an instrument for addressing the vicious cycle of sectarian violence that threatens to consume the region, as a boost to the greater cause of moderation and democratization in Iran. And so the failure of the deal to catalyze greater cooperation from Iran on a range of other priorities—Syria, Yemen, Iraq, to name a few—or to jumpstart improvements in Iran’s domestic dynamics cannot be disregarded simply because it was not its original intent.  For the “new normal” of regularized diplomatic contact between Washington and Tehran to yield dividends, the United States will need a serious strategy toward Tehran that transcends the JCPOA, building on the efficacy of the hard-won multilateral collaboration on the nuclear issue. Iranians, too, must begin to pivot the focus of their efforts away from endless litigation of the nuclear deal and toward a more constructive approach to addressing the deep challenges facing their country today.

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy and Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Director, Intelligence Project, Foreign Policy program: As I explain more fully here, one unintended but very important consequence of the Iran nuclear deal has been to aggravate and intensify Saudi Arabia's concerns about Iran's regional goals and intentions. This fueling of Saudi fears has in turn fanned sectarian tensions in the region to unprecedented levels, and the results are likely to haunt the region for years to come. Riyadh's concerns about Iran have never been primarily focused on the nuclear danger. Rather, the key Saudi concern is that Iran seeks regional hegemony and uses terrorism and subversion to achieve it. The deal deliberately does not deal with this issue. In Saudi eyes, it actually makes the situation worse because lifting sanctions removed Iran's isolation as a rogue state and gives it more income.  Washington has tried hard to reassure the Saudis, and President Obama has wisely sought to build confidence with King Salman and his young son. The Iran deal is a good one, and I've supported it from its inception. But it has had consequences that are dangerous and alarming. In the end, Riyadh and Tehran are the only players who can deescalate the situation—the Saudis show no sign of interest in that road.

Norman Eisen, Visiting Fellow, Governance Studies: The biggest disappointment of the post-deal year has been the failure of Congress to pass legislation complementing the JCPOA. There is a great deal that the legislative branch could do to support the pact. Above all, it could establish criteria putting teeth into U.S. enforcement of Preamble Section III, Iran's pledge never to seek nuclear weapons. Congress could and should make clear what the ramp to seeking nuclear weapons would look like, what the triggers would be for U.S. action, and what kinds of U.S. action would be on the table. If Iran knows that, it will modulate its behavior accordingly. If it does not, it will start to act out, and we have just kicked the can down the road. That delay is of course immensely valuable—but why not extend the road indefinitely? Congress can do that, and much more (e.g. by increasing funding for JCPOA oversight by the administration and the IAEA), with appropriate legislation.

Richard Nephew, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Foreign Policy program: Over the past year, much effort has gone into ensuring that the Iran deal is fully implemented. To date, the P5+1 has—not surprisingly—gotten the better end of the bargain, with significant security benefits accruing to them and their partners in the Middle East once the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified the required changes to Iran's nuclear program. Iran, for its part, has experienced a natural lag in its economic resurgence, held back by the collapse in oil prices in 2014, residual American and European sanctions, and reluctance among banks and businesses to re-engage. But, Iran's economy has stabilized and—if the deal holds for its full measure—the security benefits that the P5+1 and their partners have won may fall away while Iran's economy continues to grow. The most important challenge related to the deal for the next U.S. administration (and, presumably, the Rouhani administration in its second term) is therefore: how can it be taken forward, beyond the 10- to 15-year transition period? Iran will face internal pressure to expand its nuclear program, but it also will face pressure to refrain both externally and internally, should other countries in the region seek to create their own matching nuclear capabilities.  The best next step for all sides is to negotiate a region-wide arrangement to manage nuclear programs –one that constrains all sides, though perhaps not equally. It must ensure—at a minimum—that nuclear developments in the region are predictable, understandable, and credibly civilian (something Bob Einhorn and I addressed in a recent report). The next White House will need to do the hard work of convincing countries in the region—and beyond—not to rest on the victory of the JCPOA. Rather, they must take it for what it is: another step towards a more stable and manageable region.

Tamara Wittes, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:  This week, Washington is awash in events and policy papers taking stock of how the Iran nuclear deal has changed the Middle East in the past year. The narratives presented this week largely track the positions that the authors, speakers, or organizations articulated on the nuclear deal when it was first concluded last summer. Those who opposed the deal have marshaled evidence of how the deal has "emboldened" Iran's destabilizing behavior, while those who supported the deal cite evidence of "moderated" politics in the Islamic Republic. That polarized views on the deal last year produce polarized assessments of the deal's impact this year should surprise no one. In fact, no matter which side of the nuclear agreement’s worth it presents, much of the analysis out this week ascribes to the nuclear deal Iranian behavior and attitudes in the region that existed before the deal's conclusion and implementation. Iran has been a revisionist state, and a state sponsor of terrorism, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Saudi-Iranian rivalry predates the revolution; Iran's backing of Houthi militias against Saudi and its allies in Yemen well predates the nuclear agreement. Most notably, the upheavals in the Arab world since 2011 have given Iran wider opportunities than perhaps ever before to exploit the cracks within Arab societies—and to use cash, militias, and other tools to advance its interests and expand its influence. Iran has exploited those opportunities skillfully in the last five years and, as I wrote last summer, was likely to continue to do so regardless of diplomatic success or failure in Vienna. To argue that the nuclear deal somehow created these problems, or could solve them, is ahistorical.  It is true that Iran's access to global markets might free even more cash for these endeavors, and that is a real issue worth tracking. But since severe sanctions did not prevent Iran from spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support and supply Hezbollah, or marshaling Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and militia fighters to sustain the faltering regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, it's not clear that additional cash will generate a meaningful difference in regional outcomes. Certainly, the nuclear deal's conclusion and implementation did not alter the trajectory of Iranian policy in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon to any noticeable degree—and that means that, no matter what the merits or dangers of the JCPOA, the United States must still confront and work to resolve enduring challenges to regional instability—including Iran's revisionist behavior.

Kenneth M. Pollack, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:  When the JCPOA was being debated last year, I felt that the terms of the deal were far less consequential than how the United States responded to Iranian regional behavior after a deal was signed. I see the events of the past 12 months as largely having borne that out. While both sides have accused the other of "cheating," the deal has so far largely held. However, as many of my colleagues have noted, the real frictions have arisen from the U.S. geostrategic response to the deal. I continue to believe that signing the JCPOA was better than any of the realistic alternatives—though I also continue to believe that a better deal was possible, had the administration handled the negotiations differently. However, the administration’s regional approach since then has been problematic—with officials condemning Riyadh and excusing Tehran in circumstances where both were culpable and ignoring some major Iranian transgressions, for instance (and with President Obama gratuitously insulting the Saudis and other U.S. allies in interviews).  America's traditional Sunni Arab allies (and to some extent Turkey and Israel) feared that either the United States would use the JCPOA as an excuse to further disengage from the region or to switch sides and join the Iranian coalition. Their reading of events has been that this is precisely what has happened, and it is causing the GCC states to act more aggressively. I think our traditional allies would enthusiastically welcome a Hillary Clinton presidency. She would likely do all that she could to reassure them that she plans to be more engaged and more willing to commit American resources and energy to Middle Eastern problems. But those allies will eventually look for her to turn words into action. I cannot imagine a Hillary Clinton administration abrogating the JCPOA, imposing significant new economic sanctions on Iran, or otherwise acting in ways that it would fear could provoke Tehran to break the deal. Our allies may see that as Washington trying to remain on the fence, which will infuriate them.  So there are some important strategic differences between the United States and its regional allies. The second anniversary of the JCPOA could therefore prove even more fraught for America and the Middle East than the first.