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Global warming is changing environmental conditions in the Arctic and opening new opportunities for resource extraction. Greenland, long thought to have excellent potential for iron ore, copper, zinc, lead, gold, rubies, rare earth elements and oil, has looked to strengthen its economy through the development of these resources. For many in Greenland, including the current government, resource extraction is seen as a necessary step toward the ultimate goal of independence from Denmark.

On September 24, the Energy Security Initiative (ESI) and the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings hosted Premier Aleqa Hammond of Greenland for an Alan and Jane Batkin International Leaders Forum address on the future of natural resource extraction in Greenland. Following her address, a panel discussion highlighted the findings of a new Brookings report, “The Greenland Gold Rush: Promise and Pitfalls of Greenland’s Energy and Mineral Resources.” Report co-author Kevin Foley, a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, was joined on the panel by ESI Director Charles Ebinger and University of Copenhagen Professor Minik Rosing, who served as a discussant. The panel was moderated by Jonathan Pollack, a senior fellow with the China Center and Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings.

This event was part of the Alan and Jane Batkin International Leaders Forum Series, a new event series hosted by Foreign Policy at Brookings which brings global political, diplomatic and thought leaders to Washington, D.C. for major policy addresses.

 Join the conversation on Twitter using #Greenland

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• Natural Resource Development in Greenland: An Alan and Jane Batkin International Leaders Forum with Greenland's Premier Aleqa Hammond

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Dear President Obama,

Your decision to give the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) wilderness status and to ban future oil and gas drilling on the Arctic Coastal plain represents the death knell of a coherent national petroleum policy, especially when combined with limitations on new leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic Coastal plain alone contains an estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil. These actions, combined with your hesitation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline (despite five environmental assessments which conclude that the pipeline can be built and operated safely) make your so-called “all of the above energy policy” a mockery of policy incoherence.

The lack of coherent policy and contradiction continues in other areas as well. While your supporters will argue that the simultaneous opening up of areas from the Chesapeake to North Florida and parts of the western Gulf Coast shows that you are willing to allow exploration in areas deemed less environmentally sensitive, one has to query both your seeming lack of concern for East Coast bird and marine sanctuaries, not to mention possible despoliation resulting from the potential for oil spills along the East Coast. Is protection of the endangered loggerhead sea turtle and the ACE Basin along the East Coast really of lesser concern than protection of the walrus and polar bear in the Arctic? Furthermore, nearly one-third of all seafood production in the continental United States is harvested in the Gulf. The argument that Alaska is to be protected because of its “special” environmental concerns seems hypocritical given the vital importance of the petroleum industry to the Alaskan economy. Meanwhile the East Coast does not need the petroleum industry to survive or as a means of large scale employment like Alaska does.

Before President Clinton placed the Arctic Coastal plain off limits for drilling, the Department of the Interior conducted a study on the impact oil and gas drilling might have on the polar bear habitat in the region, an area equal in size to Rhode Island. The study found that there were less than four established polar bear dens in the whole region, suggesting the possibility, however remote, in the minds of Clinton administration officials, that Arctic wildlife and marine life can co-exist with development, as they have done at Prudhoe Bay since oil production commenced in 1978. Likewise, it is useful to remember that when the Trans-Alaska Pipeline system (TAPS) was built, many in the environmental community predicted a disaster for the migration of caribou herds across northern Alaska. Today, the caribou population is in fact larger than at the time the pipeline was built.

Mr. President, your actions would be hard enough to understand if they only centered on diverse points of view about the nature of fossil fuel usage and how fast we can transition to a non-fossil fuel era—not only in the United States but also around the globe. While your administration may see the closing of Alaska and the opening of the East Coast to oil and gas drilling as giving each side a bit of what they want, you fail to see that these are not juggling the interests of two constituencies. Rather, these are localized issues with high stakes, especially for the people of Alaska who often do not have the diverse employment opportunities found along the East Coast. In Alaska, the economic vitality of the state is deeply tied to resource extraction. The royalties and taxes from those industries fund the state’s public education and health care systems, while also providing Alaskans with jobs as ship captains, oil field workers, fishery workers, etc.

Further, your actions on ANWAR and the Coastal Plain are seen as likely to end any hope of revitalizing the TAPS flow rate and the resulting enhanced revenues generated through new sources of production. Mr. President, for thousands of years native Inuit populations have inhabited regions bordering the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, living on local fish and wildlife and native flora and fauna. With the discovery of oil and the inflow of oil-related money, the Inuit people have seen vast improvements in their health, life expectancy, education and financial security. Now with Prudhoe Bay production in serious decline and TAPS running at less than 600,000 mbd (down from 2 mmbd), the benefits that have accrued to them—as well as all Alaskan citizens through the royalty and taxes placed in Alaska’s Permanent Fund—are in danger of being lost, casting Alaska once again into the status of a subjugated territory of the lower 48 states.

Mr. President, in May, the United States will take over chairmanship of the Arctic Council, a pan-Arctic organization designed to address Arctic issues in a multilateral context. Alaska is our only state in the Arctic, and because of Alaska we are an Arctic nation. It also is the only place where we share a border with Russia providing an opportunity for collaboration rather than the confrontation we see today. It seems strange that, at a time when we will be in a position to lead the Arctic nations on mitigating the threats posed to the region by climate change and in insuring that the opportunities for resource development are done using environmentally-sound practices through effective regulation and oversight that we choose now to close off this great resource rather than allowing their benefits to flow to the local Alaskan population while providing resources for the nation as well as the rest of the world.

In a few short weeks, the National Petroleum Council, after months of painstaking work, will submit a report on the future direction of the nation’s Arctic policy and on offshore oil and gas development in Alaska. This report was done at the request of Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. As a member of the deliberative study group that consulted on the report, I hope you will examine its findings closely and hopefully will reconsider the opportunities afforded by prudent development of this vast resource in a way that recognizes the interests of Alaskans as well as the broader interests of our nation.

      

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

ABSTRACT

The overall economic efficiency of a quantity-based approach to greenhouse gas mitigation depends strongly on the extent to which such a program provides opportunities for compliance flexibility, particularly with regard to the timing of emissions abatement. Here I consider a program in which annual targets are determined by choosing the optimal time path of reductions consistent with an exogenously prescribed cumulative reduction target and fixed technology set. I then show that if the availability of low-carbon technology is initially more constrained than anticipated, the optimal reduction path shifts abatement toward later compliance periods. For this reason, a rigid policy in which fixed annual targets are strictly enforced in every year yields a cumulative environmental outcome identical to the optimal policy but an economic outcome worse than the optimal policy. On the other hand, a policy that aligns actual prices (or equivalently, costs) with expected prices by simply imposing an explicit price ceiling (often referred to as a "safety valve") yields the opposite result. Comparison among these multiple scenarios implies that there are significant gains to realizing the optimal path but that further refinement of the actual regulatory instrument will be necessary to achieve that goal in a real cap-and-trade system.

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INTRODUCTION

As a mechanism for controlling climate change, the Kyoto Protocol has not been a success. Over the decade from its signing in 1997 to the beginning of its first commitment period in 2008, greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial countries subject to targets under the protocol did not fall as the protocol intended. Instead, emissions in many countries rose rapidly. It is now abundantly clear that as a group, the countries bound by the protocol have little chance of achieving their Kyoto targets by the end of the first commitment period in 2012. Moreover, emissions have increased substantially as well in countries such as China, which were not bound by the protocol but which will eventually have to be part of any serious climate change regime.

Although the protocol has not been effective at reducing emissions, it has been very effective at demonstrating a few important lessons about the form future international climate agreements should take. As negotiations begin in earnest on a successor agreement to take effect in 2012, it is important to learn from experience with the Kyoto Protocol in order to avoid making the same mistakes over again and to design a more durable post-2012 international agreement.

The first lesson is that a rigid system of targets and timetables for emissions reductions is difficult to negotiate because it pushes participants into a zero sum game. To reach a given target for global greenhouse gas concentrations, for example, countries must negotiate over shares of a fixed budget of future global emissions. A looser target for one country would have to be matched by a tighter target for another. It is clear that this has been an important obstacle for much of the history of negotiations conducted under the auspices of the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change, not just the Kyoto Protocol. From the beginning, developing countries have refused to participate in dividing up a fixed emissions budget. Not only that, but many observers have argued that if such a budget were ever to be divided, it should be done on the basis of population rather than the historical emissions which were the basis of the Kyoto Protocol.

A second lesson is that it is difficult for countries to commit themselves to achieving specified emissions targets when the costs of doing so are large and uncertain. At its core, the targets and timetables approach requires each participant to achieve its national emissions target regardless of the cost of doing so. Countries facing potentially high costs either refused to ratify the protocol, such as the United States, or simply failed to achieve their targets. Countries on track to meet their obligations were able to do so because of historical events largely unrelated to climate policy, such as German reunification, the Thatcher government’s reform of coal mining in Britain, or the collapse of the Russian economy in the early 1990’s.

The third lesson is perhaps the most important of all: even countries earnestly engaged in a targets and timetables process may be unable to meet their targets due to unforeseen events. Two excellent examples are New Zealand and Canada. No one anticipated during the 1997 negotiations that a decade later New Zealand would be facing a dramatic rise in Asian demand for beef and diary products. The impact on increasing methane emissions in New Zealand has been so large that it has completely offset the reductions New Zealand was able to achieve in the earlier 1990’s via reduced methane from declining numbers of sheep and improved sinks of carbon due to growth in forestry. Similarly, no one expected that Canada would find its tar sand deposits so valuable that extraction would be viable at oil prices reached two years ago let alone at current world oil prices.

One reason there has been so much interest in a targets and timetables strategy has been a widespread misunderstanding about the precision of scientific knowledge regarding the climate. It is widely agreed among atmospheric scientists that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are rising rapidly, and that emissions should be reduced.1 However, there is little agreement about how much emissions should be cut in any given year, and there is no guarantee that stabilizing at any particular concentration will eliminate the risk of dangerous climate change. Yet it is often implied that climate science translates directly into a specific emissions target and a fixed emissions budget.2 On the contrary, however, the uncertainties still remaining in the science are important and should be a core consideration in the design of climate policy.

All of the lessons above illustrate problems inherent in the targets and timetables approach. First, it forces countries into confrontations during negotiations over shares of a fixed global emissions budget. Second, committing to achieve a rigid emissions target is difficult for countries facing uncertain and potentially very high costs. Third, unexpected events can force even well-intentioned participants into non-compliance. In the face of these problems, some observers have argued that the solution is more of the same: a broader protocol with tighter targets and deeper cuts. However, there is little reason to expect the outcome to be any different, and in the mean time emissions will continue to rise. A better approach would be to recognize that focusing on targets and timetables has undermined the ultimate goal of actual emissions reductions, and that it is critical to move negotiations in a new direction. The Hokkaido Summit to be held in Japan this year is an important opportunity to make that shift, and to move the focus of climate change negotiations in a more realistic direction.

In this paper, we discuss an alternative framework for international climate policy, the McKibbin-Wilcoxen Hybrid3—an approach that focuses on coordinated actions rather than mandated, inflexible outcomes. Rather than committing to achieve specified emissions targets, participating countries would agree to adopt coordinated actions that are clear, measurable and enforceable within national borders. Because it does not start from a fixed emissions target (although an emissions budget does guide the design of the actions we propose), the Hybrid avoids all three of the problems discussed above. Shifting to an approach based on agreed actions, rather than specific emissions outcomes, will be a critical step in the evolution of climate negotiations. It will also make national policy actions more feasible than fixed targets, since a target would be little more than a hopeful pledge given how little is known for certain about the costs of reducing emissions.

Moreover, a framework based on common actions rather than common targets is particularly useful for accommodating the needs of developing countries. Developing countries face even greater uncertainty about their future economic growth prospects and future emissions paths than developed countries, and certainly do not want to undermine their development prospects by committing to an excessively stringent emissions target.

To illustrate the differences between the targets and timetables approach and one based on the Hybrid, we present a number of numerical simulations of the world economy using the G-Cubed global economic model. We focus particular attention on two of the problems with targets and timetables: the high stakes involved in negotiating over emissions budgets, and the risks stemming from uncertainty about costs. We first show that the outcome of a Kyoto-style targets and timetables policy with global emissions trading depends significantly on the allocation scheme for the emissions targets. We present one set of results using an allocation based on historical emissions and another set of results based on an equal per capita allocation. The results show how different the national costs of the policy will be depending on how emissions rights are allocated. We then examine the performance of the Kyoto-style allocation under one source of uncertainty: the rate of growth in developing countries, particularly China and India.

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On May 26, 2014, after the Bharatiya Janata Party won a convincing majority in India’s national elections, Narendra Modi took office as prime minister. The first Indian premier to be born after independence, he formed the first majority government in India in more than 25 years. Over the past 12 months, policymakers, corporate leaders, analysts, and the media in India and abroad have been watching closely to see whether Modi can deliver on the promises of growth, good governance, greater role and respect on the world stage, and getting things done.

On May 20, the India Project at Brookings hosted an event to assess the Modi government’s first year in office. The panel considered developments over the last year in the economic, social, energy, and foreign policy realms, as well as in domestic politics. Panelists discussed their perspectives of the government’s performance, where they see continuity vs. change, what has surprised them, what we might expect to see in the future, and key developments to look for over the next year.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #ModiYearOne

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• The Modi government in India turns one: An assessment

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• The Modi government in India turns one: An assessment

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Over the last couple of years, a number of crucial political and policy-related developments have unfolded in India, as well as in U.S.-India relations. These developments have emerged as the next generation of Indian politicians, born after the country’s independence, is coming to the fore—including in parliament.

On October 7, The India Project at Brookings hosted a delegation of Indian parliamentarians to discuss the current state of Indian policy and politics. The panel featuring MPs from different political parties and states in India explored the state of the Indian economy and foreign policy, federalism, the role of regional parties, coalition politics, the role of the media and technology, and U.S.-India relations.

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• India today: A conversation with Indian members of parliament

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• 20151007_india_today_transcript

       

       

       

Executive Summary

During the first decade of the 21^st century the six states of the Mountain West — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah — experienced unprecedented political and demographic changes. Population growth in all six states exceeded the national average and the region is home to the four states that underwent the largest population gains between 2000 and 2010. As a consequence, the region is now home to some of the most demographically diverse and geographically concentrated states in the country— factors that helped to transform the Mountain West from a Republican stronghold into America’s new swing region. This paper examines the impact that increased diversity and density are exerting on reapportionment and redistricting in each Mountain West state and assesses the implications that redistricting outcomes will exert both nationally and within each state in the coming decade.  Nationally, the region’s clout will increase due to the addition of three seats in the House of Representatives (one each in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah) and electoral contexts in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico that will result in competitive presidential and senate elections throughout the decade. At the state level, the combination of term limits, demographic change, and the reapportionment of state legislative seats from rural to urban areas will alter the composition of these states’ legislatures and should facilitate the realignment of policy outcomes that traditionally benefitted rural interests at the expense of urban needs.

Introduction

As reapportionment and redistricting plans across the 50 states are finalized and candidate recruitment begins in earnest, the contours of the 2012 election are coming into focus. One region of the country where reapportionment (redistributing seats to account for population shifts) and redistricting (drawing boundaries for state legislative and congressional districts) are likely to have significant consequences in 2012 and beyond is in the six states of the Mountain West: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Driven by explosive growth during the past decade, the Mountain West is now home to some of the most demographically diverse and geographically concentrated states in the country. As a consequence, the region has increasingly become more hospitable to Democrats, particularly Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico and to a lesser extent Arizona. In this paper, I examine how these changes are affecting reapportionment and redistricting across the region. Specifically, after summarizing some of the key regional demographic and political changes, I offer a brief overview of the institutional contexts in which the maps are being drawn. This is followed by an assessment of outcomes in each state. I conclude with a discussion of the national and state level implications that reapportionment and redistricting are likely to engender across the Mountain West.

A Region in Transition

Between 2000 and 2010 population growth in all six Mountain West states outpaced the national average of 9.7 percent and the region contains the four states that experienced the largest percent population increase in the country (Nevada = 35.1 percent; Arizona = 24.6 percent; Utah = 23.8 percent, and Idaho = 21.1 percent).[i] As a consequence, Nevada and Utah each gained their fourth seats in the House of Representative and Arizona was awarded its ninth. Beginning with the 2012 election, the Mountain West will have 29 U.S. House seats (Idaho has two House seats, New Mexico has three, and Colorado has seven) and 41 Electoral College votes.

Across the Mountain West, population growth was concentrated in the region’s largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA).[ii] Most notably, the Las Vegas metro area is now home to nearly three out of four Nevadans — the mostly highly concentrated space in the region. In Arizona, roughly two-thirds of the population now resides in the Phoenix MSA, which grew by nearly 30 percent. The Albuquerque MSA experienced the largest overall increase as a share of total population (nearly 25 percent) and now contains 44 percent of New Mexico’s population. And while Idaho remains the state in the region with the least dense population, growth in the Boise MSA significantly outpaced that state’s overall population gain and nearly 40 percent of all Idahoans reside in and around Boise. On the other end of the spectrum are the Salt Lake City and Denver MSAs, which as shares of the Colorado and Utah populations decreased slightly from 2000. Still, better than half (50.57 percent) of all Coloradoans live in Denver and its suburbs and around 41 percent of Utah’s population is concentrated in the Salt Lake City MSA.

In addition to further urbanizing the region, the prior decade’s growth continued to transform the region’s demographics as all six Mountain West states are now more ethnically diverse as compared to a decade ago.[iii] The largest changes occurred in Nevada where the minority population increased by over 11 percent and now better than 45 percent of Nevadans are classified as non-white. While the bulk of this growth was among Hispanics, whose share of the population increased by 7 percent and are now 26.5 percent of all Nevadans, the Silver State also recorded large increases among Asian and Pacific Islanders. Arizona experienced similar increases as that state’s minority population mushroomed from 36.2 percent to 42.2 percent with Hispanics now constituting 30 percent of the population. In Colorado, the minority population increased by 3.5 percent to 30 percent. Nearly all of this change was caused by an increase in Hispanics, who now constitute 20.7 percent of the state’s population. New Mexico continues to be the Mountain West’s most diverse state as nearly three out of five New Mexicans are minorities and the state contains the region’s largest Hispanic population (46 percent). And while Idaho and Utah remain overwhelmingly white, both states’ non-white populations grew at levels similar to Colorado. Idaho is now 16 percent non-white (including a Hispanic population of 11.2 percent) and nearly one in five Utahans is a minority. Between 2000 and 2010, Hispanics increased by 4 percent to constitute 13 percent of Utah’s population.

Politically, these changes helped to create competitive electoral contexts across the region. Indeed, with the obvious exceptions of Idaho and Utah, the Mountain West is now more hospitable to the Democratic Party than it was in 2000. In particular, Democrats were able to make significant gains in Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico and effectively flipped those states from Republican leaning in 2000 to Democratic leaning in 2010. In Arizona, the Democratic performance was highly variable and moved in near perfect tandem with the broader national political environment. At the same time, the downturn in Democratic support in 2010 indicates that the party has not yet consolidated its gains. Riding a favorable 2010 macro-environment, Mountain West Republicans gained one governorship (New Mexico), seats in ten of the region’s 12 state legislative chambers, and seven House seats (out of a total of 26 in the region).[iv] Thus, heading into the 2011 redistricting cycle, Republicans control the executive and legislative branches in Arizona, Idaho, and Utah and there are no Mpuntain West states where the Democrats have unified control as the partisan composition of the Colorado legislature is divided and Nevada and New Mexico have Republican governors and Democratic legislatures.

The Institutional Context

Because of variation in the institutional arrangements governing how each state approaches reapportionment and redistricting, the impact that the demographic and political changes outlined above are exerting on map drawing differs across the region. To be sure, there are a number of commonalities across the states such as requirements of equally populated U.S. House districts, minimum population variation for state legislative districts, and boundary lines that are compact, contiguous, and maintain communities of interests. 

Beyond these constraints, mapmakers across the region are afforded different degrees of latitude in how they go about doing their work. For instance, in Nevada and New Mexico, the residency of incumbents can be considered, while Idaho forbids it. Idaho allows for twice as much inter-district population variation for state legislative districts as Colorado and New Mexico, and Idaho only allows state legislative districts to cross county lines if the counties are linked by a highway. Arizona and Idaho mandate that two lower chamber districts be nested within the boundaries of a state senate seat, while Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah do not. Nevada also allows for multi-member member state legislative districts. Lastly, Arizona’s redistricting plans must be pre-cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice. While Arizona is the only state in the region subject to preclearance, protection of minority voting rights also has been a point of contention in prior redistricting cycles in New Mexico.

The Mountain West states also vary in terms of who oversees the redistricting process. State legislators control the process in Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, while Arizona and Idaho use commissions. In Colorado, the General Assembly draws the map for the state’s seven U.S. House seats, while a commission oversees the drawing of state legislative maps. For the three states that use commissions for either all or part of their processes, commission size and composition differs significantly and only the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) is charged with drawing maps that are competitive.[v] 

However, the most significant constraint on reapportionment and redistricting in the Mountain West is the small size of the region’s state legislatures.[vi] The mix of small chambers, increased urbanization, and large geographic spaces means very large and increasingly, fewer and fewer stand- alone rural districts. This dynamic also helps to explain the region’s history of malapportionment that often allocated seats by county regardless of population.[vii] 

State Summaries

Based upon the overview presented above, expectations about the general contours of reapportionment and redistricting in the Mountain West are fairly straightforward: the clout of urban and minority interests will increase and to the degree that those factors benefit the Democrats, the Democrats should gain some partisan advantage. Realizing these outcomes, however, has proven to be less than amicable. With the exception of Utah, all other states in the region have had various aspects of their processes litigated, and map drawing for Colorado’s U.S. House seats and all of Nevada and New Mexico’s redistricting is being completed in state courts. Below, I summarize the status of reapportionment and redistricting in each state.

Arizona

Beginning its work amid criticism of its composition, calls for its abolishment, and an investigation by the Arizona attorney general, the voter-initiated Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) has struggled to balance the conflicting demands of drawing competitive districts with the protection of minority voting rights. The commission’s work has been further hindered by Republican Governor Jan Brewer’s unsuccessful attempt to impeach the commission’s nonpartisan chair. In addition, Arizona has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the state’s preclearance requirement.

Republican attempts to undermine the AIRC stem from the fact that given unified Republican control of the Arizona governorship and legislature, Republicans would otherwise be in a position to implement a partisan gerrymander. At the same time, the GOP’s present dominance is partially an artifact of the 2001 redistricting. To gain preclearance in 2001, the AIRC’s maps created a large number of majority-minority state legislative districts and minority-friendly U.S House seats by packing Democratic voters into these districts. In so doing, Democratic support in the surrounding districts was weakened; allowing Republicans to more efficiently translate their votes into seats.[viii] Thus, despite a slight partisan voter registration advantage (4.35 percent as of July 2011), Republicans presently hold more than two-thirds of the state legislative seats and five of eight U.S. House seats.

Given Arizona’s growth patterns between 2000 and 2010 coupled with the AIRC’s charge of creating competitive district, drawing a map as favorable to the GOP in 2011 is virtually impossible unless the size of the Arizona legislature is increased. Still, in order to protect minority voting rights, Arizona’s final maps are likely to tilt in favor of the GOP — just not to the degree that they have in the past. In particular, the elimination and consolidation of rural state legislative districts and a more urban orientation for Arizona’s nine U.S. House districts should provide the Democrats with electoral opportunities that will only increase as Arizona’s population continues to diversity and urbanize.

Colorado

As noted above, Colorado uses a commission (the Colorado Redistricting Commission) for redistricting state legislative seats and the Colorado General Assembly draws the maps for the state’s seven U.S. House seats. Neither process has gone smoothly. For the state’s seven U.S. House seats, the Democratic-dominated state senate and the Republican-controlled lower chamber failed to find common ground after exchanging two rounds of maps. Because Democratic governor John Hickenlooper refused to call a special session, redistricting of Colorado U.S. House seats was completed in state court. After a good deal of legal wrangling, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a map favored by Colorado Democrats that creates two safe Republican districts, one safe Democratic district, and four districts where neither party’s registration advantage exceeds 4 percent. As a consequence, Colorado will feature a number of competitive U.S. House elections throughout the coming decade.

Map drawing for state legislative seats by the CRC has also been hindered by partisanship. Hoping to break a partisan stalemate, in late summer the nonpartisan chair of the CRC offered maps that combined parts of prior Democratic and Republican proposals to create thirty-three competitive seats (out of a total of 100) and twenty-four seats with Hispanic populations of 30 percent or more. After being approved by the CRC with some Republican dissents, the plan was rejected by the Colorado Supreme Court, which must sign-off on the CRC’s plans before they can be implemented. By attempting to draw more competitive maps — a criterion that the CRC is not obligated to consider – the CRC’s maps undermined its charge of producing districts that keep communities of interest intact. The CRC’s second set maps, which were widely viewed as favoring the Democrats, were upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court.

Idaho

While partisan considerations have loomed large in the reapportionment and redistricting processes in Arizona and Colorado, in Republican-dominated Idaho the main points of contention have been spatial. Indeed, because of the difficulty of satisfying a constitutional requirement limiting county splits and a state law constraining how geographic areas can be combined, the Idaho’s Citizen Commission for Reapportionment (ICCR) failed to reach an agreement before its constitutionally imposed deadline. After sorting through a number of legal and constitutional questions, a second set of commissioners were impaneled and completed their work in less than three weeks. Given Idaho’s partisan composition, the final maps are a regional anomaly as they benefit the GOP while being somewhat more urban oriented. This was accomplished by moving rural Republican voters into urban Democratic state legislative districts and adjusting the lines of Idaho’s 1st House district to shed roughly 50,000 citizens. At the same time, because of Idaho’s strict constraints on how cities and counties can be divided, the map for the state legislature paired a number of incumbents in the same district and one district contains the residences of five incumbents, setting up a number of competitive primary elections.

While growth patterns and demographic and partisan change in Nevada between 2000 and 2010 insured a redistricting process that would favor Democrats, Nevada Republicans sought to delay this inevitability as long as possible. The state’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, vetoed two sets of maps passed by the Democratic controlled legislature and Sandoval refused to call a special session to complete redistricting. Instead, he and his party hoped for a better outcome in state court. Despite drawing a supervising judge who was the son of a former Republican Governor, Nevada Republicans fared no better in state court. Ultimately, the process was turned over to three special masters who rejected Nevada Republicans’ claim that section 2 of the Voting Rights Act required a majority Hispanic U.S. House district.[ix] As a consequence, two of Nevada’s U.S. House seats favor Democrats, one is safely Republican, and the fourth is a swing district. In the Nevada legislature the representation of urban interests will increase as parts of or all of forty-seven of the sixty-three seats in the Nevada legislature are now located in the Democratic stronghold of Clark County. 

New Mexico

The 2011 process in New Mexico has essentially been a rerun of the gridlock that engulfed the state’s 2001 redistricting debate. Once again, the Democrats sought to use their control over both chambers of the New Mexico legislature to preserve their majorities and draw the boundaries for the state’s three U.S. House seats in manner favorable to the party. However, because of bickering among Democrats the legislature failed to approve its map for the state’s three U.S. House seats prior to the end of the special session and the plans for the state legislature that were passed on party line votes were vetoed by Republican governor Susana Martinez. Thus, once again, New Mexico’s divided state government coupled with the state’s history of litigating redistricting plans (in 2001 map drawing and court battles cost the state roughly $3.5 million) means that redistricting will be completed in state court. While the Republicans may be able to gain some concessions through the courts, New Mexico is the most Democratic state in the Mountain West and, as noted above, the state’s growth during the prior decade was concentrated in heavily Democratic Albuquerque and its suburbs. Thus, as in 2001, the likely outcome in New Mexico is a redistricting plan that will be favorable to the Democrats and weaken the influence of rural interests.

Utah

Utah is the only state in the region where conditions exist (e.g., unified partisan control in a non-commission state) for the implementation of a partisan gerrymander. However, to accomplish this end required the slicing and dicing of communities and municipalities particularly those in and around the state’s urban center. Most notably, in drawing the state’s four U.S. House seats, Republicans divided the Utah’s population center (Salt Lake City County) into four districts by combining parts of the urban core with rural counties - a plan that, not coincidentally, cracks the only part of the state where Democrats are able to compete. Similarly, maps for state legislative districts increase the number of seats that favor the GOP and, in many instances, protect incumbents from potential primary challengers by dividing communities into multiple districts. Democrats in Utah are so depleted that they were unable to get the Republicans to even agree to include recognition and protection of minority communities of interest to in Utah’s redistricting guidelines. Thus, despite constituting nearly 20 percent of the state’s population, minorities received no consideration in Utah’s 2011 redistricting.

Implications and Conclusions

Reapportionment and redistricting are often regarded as the most political activities in the United States; an expectation that is certainly being realized across the Mountain West. In the swing states where legislators draw the maps (for example, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico) but where state government is divided, partisan considerations loomed large, causing all of these states to conclude all or parts of their redistricting processes in the courts. The conflicts between Arizona’s preclearance requirement and the AIRC’s commitment to drawing competitive districts have partisan consequences as well. In one-party Idaho and Utah, the politics of space were at issue.  Geographic constraints on district boundaries imposed through statute and the Idaho constitution ensured that more rural seats were preserved and that the growing influence of urban interests will be checked. In Utah, Republicans moved in the opposite direction by carving up the very communities from which they are elected in order to implement a partisan gerrymander. 

Another school of thought, however, argues that the most typical redistricting outcome is not partisan gain or loss, but an uncertainty that shakes up the state political environment and facilitates political renewal. In the case of the Mountain West, there is evidence to support that claim as well. The biggest source of uncertainty will continue to be growth. While the economic downturn has slowed migration to the region, the Mountain West states remain poised to keep expanding in a manner that will further concentrate and diversify their populations. A second source of uncertainty is the region’s large number of nonpartisans. While redistricting is often framed as a zero-sum game played between Democrats and Republicans, the electoral hopes for either party hinges on its ability to attract the support of the region’s expanding nonpartisan demographic.[x] 

At the state level, with the exception of Idaho, the most significant consequence will be a reduction in rural influence. The combination of term limits in Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado, small legislative chambers, and fast growing urban populations will continue to decrease the number of entrenched rural legislators and the number of stand-alone rural districts. Consequently, urban interests should be positioned to align state policy with demographic reality. The void created by the demise of rural legislators will be filled by minorities, particularly Hispanics. To date, the increased political activism of Hispanic communities across the region has primarily benefited Democrats; helped in no small part by the hard-line rhetoric and policies championed by some Mountain West Republicans.[xi] More generally, depending on growth patterns, by 2020 Nevada and perhaps Arizona may join New Mexico as states with majority-minority populations. Thus, with or without Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, minority legislators, primarily Hispanics, will increase their ranks significantly. The only question is whether all of these politicians will be taking office with a “D” next to their names or whether some will be elected as Republicans.  

Nationally, the impact of reapportionment and redistricting is mixed. Certainly, the addition of three U.S. House seats after the 2010 census will give more voice to regional issues in Washington D.C. At the same time, because the Mountain West’s House delegation will continue to be split along partisan lines and many of the region’s competitive House seats will rotate between the parties throughout the decade, it may be difficult for any but the safest Mountain West representatives to accrue the requisite seniority to become players in the House. Also, because of pending retirements in Arizona and New Mexico, a successful 2010 primary challenge in Utah, and a resignation in Nevada, the region’s influence in the U.S. Senate is likely to decline in the near term. Indeed, after the 2012 election the only senators from the region who will have served more than one term will be Nevada’s Harry Reid, Arizona’s John McCain, Idaho’s Mike Crapo, and Utah’s Orrin Hatch (presuming a successful 2012 reelection).

Thus, the arena where the region is likely to garner the most attention is in the coming decade’s three presidential elections. Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico were all battleground states in 2004 and 2008, with Republican George W. Bush narrowly winning all three in 2004 and Democrat Barack Obama flipping them blue in 2008 by wider margins. Obviously, Idaho and Utah will remain out of reach for the Democrats in statewide contests for some time.  However, Arizona is likely to become the region’s fourth swing state in the near future. Thus, continued investment in Arizona and throughout the region will allow the Democrats to further expand the number of Mountain West states in play while forcing the GOP to spend resources to defend turf that it once could safely call its own.

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• The Impact of Density and Diversity on Reapportionment and Redistricting in the Mountain West

       

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       

       

       

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

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

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Over the past two decades, the Puget Sound area’s innovation-driven economy has become a magnet for highly educated people from across the country and around the world. Drawn to the region by some of the nation’s most innovative companies—Microsoft, Boeing, Nintendo, Amazon, Genentech and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, to name a few—the Puget Sound region ranks well on measures of educational attainment. Of the nation’s largest 100 metro areas, the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area is 11th in bachelor’s degree holders and 17th in graduate degree attainment.

But for all its brainpower, the region has fallen behind in terms of cultivating homegrown talent, particularly in less affluent school districts located in South Seattle and South King County. Starting from an early age, low-income students and children of color in these communities tend to lag behind on important indicators of educational success. The effects of this achievement gap worsen with time, putting these students at a serious disadvantage that often affects their ability to find jobs and their earning potential. 

In an effort to address this achievement gap, the Community Center for Education Results has teamed up with the city of Seattle, the University of Washington, the Seattle Community Colleges District, the Puget Sound Educational Service District, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others to form the Road Map Project, a coalition working to double the number of South Seattle and South King County students pursuing a college diploma or career credential by 2020.

What’s innovative about the Road Map Project is its focus on collective action and community engagement. By bringing together key stakeholders to collaborate on shared goals, the project is creating a new model for efforts to reduce inequality in educational attainment. Its cradle-to-college-and-career approach aims to improve student outcomes beginning with access to prenatal care and kindergarten readiness all the way through to elementary and secondary schooling and beyond. Through a combination of community outreach and partnership building, data-driven goal-setting and performance management, the project supports area organizations working to boost student success and close the achievement gap in South Seattle and South King County.

In December, the Project released its baseline report, which provides a detailed snapshot of student achievement in the Road Map region during the 2009-2010 school year. With this initial data in hand, the project will be able to work with area organizations to encourage and track progress on a wide variety of indicators, ranging from birth weight and full-day kindergarten enrollment to proficiency in reading, math, and science, parent engagement to graduation rates and postsecondary enrollment. “Demographics should not determine the destiny of children in this region,” says Mary Jean Ryan, executive director of the Community Center for Education Results. “The children who grow up here deserve as good of an education as the people who show up here.”

      

Today in Seattle, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray will announce the Central Puget Sound region is joining a pilot program that will create and implement plans to attract foreign direct investment as part of the Global Cities Initiative, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and JPMorgan Chase.

Mayor Murray will make this announcement at a Global Cities Initiative forum, where Seattle area business and civic leaders will also discuss strengthening the global identity of the Puget Sound region and expanding opportunities in overseas markets. Following the announcement, Mayor Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma and Mayor Ray Stephanson of Everett will make additional remarks about the importance of this new effort.

The Seattle area is joined in the pilot by Columbus, Ohio; Minneapolis-Saint Paul; Portland, Ore.; San Antonio; and San Diego. This group will meet in Seattle today for their first working session, where they will discuss the process for developing their foreign direct investment plans.

Foreign direct investment has long supported regional economies, not only by infusing capital, but also by investing in workers, strengthening global connections and sharing best business practices. The Global Cities Initiative’s foreign direct investment planning process will help metro areas promote their areas’ unique appeal, establish strategic and mutually beneficial relationships and attract this important, underutilized source of investment.

With the help of the Global Cities Initiative, the selected metro areas will strategically pursue foreign direct investment such as new expansions, mergers and acquisitions, and other types of foreign investment. Forthcoming Brookings research will offer metropolitan leaders more detailed data on foreign direct investment’s influence on local economies.

Read the Forum Press Release Here »

See the Event Recap »

       

Two years after the country entered the Great Recession, there are signs the national economy has slowly begun to recover. Thus far recovery has meant the return of economic growth, but not the return of jobs. And just as some communities have felt the downturn more than others, recovery has not and will not be shared equally across the nation’s diverse metropolitan economies.

Within metropolitan areas, many communities continue to struggle with high unemployment and increasing economic and fiscal challenges, while at the same time poverty and the need for emergency and support services continue to rise. Even under the best case scenario of a sustained and robust recovery, cities and suburbs throughout the nation will be dealing with the social and economic aftermath of such a deep and lengthy recession for some time to come.

An analysis of unemployment, initial Unemployment Insurance claims, and receipt of Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) benefits in urban and suburban communities over the course of the Great Recession reveals that:

• Between December 2007 and December 2009, city and suburban unemployment rates in large metro areas increased by roughly the same degree (5.1 versus 4.8 percentage points, respectively). By December 2009, the gap between city and suburban unemployment rates was one percentage point (10.3 percent versus 9.3 percent)—smaller than 24 months after the start of the first recession of the decade (1.7 percentage points) and the downturn in the early 1990s (2.2 percentage points).
  
  
• Western metro areas exhibited the greatest increases in city and suburban unemployment rates—5.8 and 5.6 percentage points—over the two-year period ending in December of 2009. Increases in unemployment rates tilted more toward primary cities in Northeastern metro areas (a 5.3 percentage-point increase versus 4.2 percentage points in the suburbs), while suburbs saw slightly larger increases in the South (5.0 versus 4.4 percentage points).
  
  
• Initial Unemployment Insurance (UI) claims increased considerably between December 2007 and December 2009 in urban and suburban areas alike. The largest increases in requests for UI occurred in the first year of the downturn—led by lower-density suburbs—with new claims beginning to taper off between December of 2008 and 2009.
  
  
• SNAP receipt increased steeply and steadily between January 2008 and July 2009 across both urban and suburban counties. Urban counties remain home to the largest number of SNAP recipients, though suburban counties saw enrollment increase at a slightly faster pace during the downturn—36.1 percent compared to 29.4 percent in urban counties.
  

Even as signs point to a tentative economic recovery for the nation, metropolitan areas throughout the country continue to struggle with high unemployment. Within these regions, the negative effects of this downturn—as measured by changes in unemployment and demand for safety net services—have been shared across cities and suburbs alike. Standardizing sub-state data collection and reporting across programs would better enable policymakers and services providers to effectively track indicators of recovery and need in the nation’s largest labor markets.

Read the Full Paper » (PDF)
Read the Related Report: Job Sprawl and the Suburbanization of Poverty »

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• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C

      

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Beijing spurned a compromise is unclear.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regional views and implications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       

Two decades ago, Hillary Clinton delivered a speech in Beijing that inspired feminists around the world, declaring “women’s rights are human rights.” Since that declaration, a lot has changed for women globally. But what has changed for women in China?

While Chinese women today have increased freedoms, there is still a long way to go before gender equality is realized. Civil unrest concerning gender inequality recently made headlines in China and abroad when a group of five female protesters in China were arrested and jailed for publicly demonstrating against gender inequities, such as inequality in higher education and domestic violence. This incident underlined much of the commentary at a recent Brookings’s John L. Thornton China Center forum on women’s issues and gender inequality in China, during which the following key messages were conveyed:

China is in the midst of a rapid, if quiet, sexual revolution

China’s first and leading sexologist, Li Yinhe, delivered a keynote address that emphasized that when it comes to sex, China is in the midst of an “era of important changes.” Li explained that all sexual activities before marriage were illegal in China before 1997 because of a “hooliganism law,” and a woman could be arrested for having sex with more than one man. Thus, premarital sex was forbidden. In surveys in 1989, only 15% of citizens reported having premarital sex—and “most of them were having sex with their permanent partners,” Li said. That law was overturned in 1997, and recent surveys show that 71% of Chinese citizens admit to having sex before marriage. This is a dramatic change in a short period of time, and marks what Li asserts is a sexual revolution for Chinese citizens.

Chinese law still lags behind changes in social customs

While some sex laws have adapted, others are far behind. Li highlighted some “outdated” sex laws in China that are still “on the book[s],” but that are no longer strictly obeyed by the Chinese people.

Li said the indicators are clear that the force of these laws is waning. There are fewer people being punished for these offenses and the punishments are becoming increasingly less severe. Her discussion stressed four areas where public opinion has changed drastically over the last few decades, but Chinese laws haven’t adapted:  

1. Pornography: Pornography isn’t considered to be protected as it is in the U.S. In contrast, Chinese law strictly prohibits creating and selling porn. In the 1980s, porn publishers would be sentenced to death. Now the punishment is less severe—for example, a 24-year-old Beijing woman published seven “sex novels” online. Her viewership was 80,000 hits on her novels, but her punishment was only six months in criminal detention.
2. Prostitution: Prostitution is another activity affected by outdated laws in China, where any solicitation of sex is strictly illegal. In the early-1980s through late-1990s the punishment for facilitating prostitution was severe. In 1996, a bathhouse owner was sentenced to death for organizing prostitution. Now, prostitution is widely practiced and the most severe punishment for organized prostitution is that those managing sex workers are ordered to shut down their businesses.  
3. Orgies and sex parties: Chinese law used to brutally punish swingers and individuals who planned sex parties. For example, in the early-1980s “the punishment for spousal swapping was death…[and] people would be sentenced to death for organizing sex parties,” Li explained. But this is another area where the punishment for the law has now become less strict. In 2011 in Nanjing, an associate university professor organized a sex party with 72 people, and the “punishment for him was three and a half years in prison.” Also, in 2014 in Shanghai, some citizens recently organized an online sex party, and their punishment was only three months of criminal detention. According to recent private surveys, “many people are [engaging] in sex parties or orgies.” While in theory these are punishable by criminal law, “no one reports [them], so they do not get noticed,” Li said.  
4. Homosexuality and same-sex marriage: In regards to homosexuality, Li was quick to note that China’s view of homosexuality is historically very different from Western views. For example, in some U.S. states, laws “criminalized or deemed homosexual activities illegal.” But throughout China’s history, there were not severe repercussions or the death penalty for homosexuality, and it “was never illegal.” However, this is not the case for same-sex marriage. Li thinks it will be “hard to predict” when same-sex marriage might be legalized.

Chinese women will have sexual freedom, but when isn’t clear

So what does the future hold for these laws? Li explained that sex is a “hot topic” right now in Chinese public debate, and the “general consensus among legal scholars and sociologists is that these [outdated] laws need to be removed.” Those who oppose removing these laws are “in the minority.” While that may be true, she suggested it would be difficult to “form a timetable” when politicians might consider amending these laws.

As for the five young women sentenced to jail last month, Li said she usually tries to stay out of politics, but thinks people “should stand up and speak out” when their own rights are being violated. Li argued that jailing these women for expressing their opinions violated the rights of all women—and hopes that other women speak up about their arrest.

If you are interested in learning more, watch Li Yinhe’s full keynote and the entire panel event here:

Alison Burke contributed to this post.

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

SUMMARY

Replacing inefficient kerosene lighting with electric lighting or other clean alternatives can rapidly achieve development and energy access goals, save money and reduce climate warming. Many of the 250 million households that lack reliable access to electricity rely on inefficient and dangerous simple wick lamps and other kerosene-fueled light sources, using 4 to 25 billion liters of kerosene annually to meet basic lighting needs. Kerosene costs can be a significant household expense and subsidies are expensive. New information on kerosene lamp emissions reveals that their climate impacts are substantial. Eliminating current annual black carbon emissions would provide a climate benefit equivalent to 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide reductions over the next 20 years. Robust and low-cost technologies for supplanting simple wick and other kerosene-fueled lamps exist and are easily distributed and scalable. Improving household lighting offers a low-cost opportunity to improve development, cool the climate and reduce costs.

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INTRODUCTION

If you are one of those government officials, finance experts, development professionals or NGO members whose eyes glaze over when you see an article on procurement, you are the audience I want to address. Procurement is the purchase of works, goods and services by individuals or firms, or government entities in the case of public procurement. We all make procurement decisions in our everyday lives. We pride ourselves on making good decisions and being able to apply discretion and judgment. Now imagine if you were improving your home and were constrained by pages and pages of legal and technical regulations that take away that discretion. You would soon question whether those regulations were relevant and whether they provide any value or simply delayed and jeopardized good decision-making. Worse yet, imagine if you had to follow rules that someone else outside your family, your community or your country set for you. While public procurement requires a higher standard of governance than personal procurement, developing countries and other stakeholders are raising these questions regarding the policies set by multilateral aid institutions.

In November 2013, the World Bank released the report of its first stage efforts in reforming its procurement policy as it relates to the projects it finances. As the World Bank enters the second stage in designing the actual reforms, the “development community” faces a crucial moment and opportunity to refine and reform a fundamental instrument in the development toolbox—one that has been treated for too long as a “plumbing and wiring” issue that ignores the broader public policy implications and the growing burden of conflicting objectives, regulations, incentives and political polemics. The purpose of this paper is to examine concerns regarding reform of multilateral agencies’ public procurement policies, enhance awareness of what is at stake and lay the groundwork for the reform discussions at development institutions that will take place over the next year.

I should alert you, however, that I am neither a procurement specialist, nor am I a lawyer or an engineer. I would describe myself as a development practitioner. After decades of working on infrastructure projects and on multilateral operational policy, I have maintained a deep respect for my procurement colleagues who have protected my proverbial “backside.” One quickly learns in this business that a mistake in procurement can result in serious consequences as one sits in the middle of the converging, and often conflicting, interests of governments, donors, private sector and, of course, affected communities. The procurement policies applied by the multilateral finance institutions have been responsible for enhancing competition, deepening transparency and raising the integrity of investment in developing countries, as well as opening markets for developed and developing countries’ businesses. As the world of public procurement has evolved, however, one also learns that procurement is becoming more than just getting the “plumbing and wiring” right. Indeed, the role and application of public procurement policies and practices is an essential element of design and implementation with crucial consequences for the quality of outcomes. The case set forth in this paper lays out the factors driving the need for major reform of multilateral banks’ procurement policies—rather than simply adapting existing policies. This paper also presents the major challenges to be addressed in designing the reforms and the tensions to be resolved or balanced as the World Bank enters the more detailed design stage of its reform effort.

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It has been nearly three years since the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States (“the New Deal”) was endorsed at the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan in 2011. Given the minimal progress of fragile states in achieving the Millennium Development Goals1 (MDGs) and that conflict and fragility are part of the deliberations on the post-2015 global development agenda, it is appropriate to assess New Deal implementation to date and see what early lessons can be learned. This review is intended to provide insights on current efforts and provoke thought and discussion on how implementation could be improved.

Since the New Deal was endorsed in Busan, a group of fragile states known as the g7+ has emerged to champion support for fragile states. The group started in 2010 with seven members but by May, 2014, its membership spanned 20 countries from four continents. The g7+ represents the first time a genuine constituency of fragile states has begun to engage with one other and with the international community about the causes of fragility and how to address it. Despite the modest progress that has been made and the enthusiasm of New Deal focal points among donors, civil society, and g7+ pilot countries, implementation of the New Deal to date is characterized by unmet conditions, unrealistic expectations about timeframes, and a lack of sustained dialogue about the causes of conflict and fragility. Overall, the Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals (PSGs) are being adopted into national development plans (Figure 1), but donors and civil society have concerns about the g7+ pilot countries’ commitment to use these goals as the basis for an inclusive and sustained dialogue about the causes of conflict and fragility. Conversely, although some elements of the TRUST component (Figure 1) are being implemented, g7+ pilot country governments have concerns about donors’ commitments to share risk and increase the use of country systems. Progress has been made in the implementation of the FOCUS elements (Figure 1), in terms of the number of fragility assessments conducted and compacts or mutual accountability frameworks established, but concern exists at the global level that there has been an overemphasis on the technical exercises and insufficient effort put toward political dialogue at the country level. The effort put into technical processes should not overshadow sustained political dialogue, and the tendency to rely on conditionality as the basis for New Deal partnership should be consciously avoided.

Greater investment should be made in rolling out the New Deal to reduce the amount of confusion surrounding it at the country level. This would perhaps best be accomplished by building the capacity within the different stakeholder groups, and especially by bolstering dedicated staffing for the New Deal. Donors and the g7+ should increase their domestic advocacy and educate stakeholders about the expectations inherent to New Deal participation, the potential risk-benefit tradeoffs, and the underlying assumptions about their willingness to do things differently. A combination of fewer conditions, increased investment, more inclusive political dialogue, and better domestic advocacy could render the New Deal a transformative approach to addressing the challenges and opportunities that exist in fragile and conflict-affected states.

This paper is an independent assessment of New Deal implementation. It is based on a review of New Deal documentation and interviews with focal points in g7+ pilot countries, lead donor agencies, and civil society. The interviews were conducted during April, May, and June 2014. This review focuses on the original seven pilot countries that volunteered to implement the New Deal: Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Timor Leste. The review also includes Somalia, given that a compact was developed there in 2013.

      

In the developing world, more than 200 million children under the age of five years are at risk of not reaching their full development potential because they suffer from the negative consequences of poverty, nutritional deficiencies and inadequate learning opportunities. Overall, 165 million children (one in four) are stunted, and 90 percent of these children live in Africa and Asia. And though some progress has been made globally, child malnutrition remains a serious public health problem with enormous human and economic costs. Worldwide, only about 50 percent of children are enrolled in preprimary education, and in low-income countries a mere 17 percent. And though more and more children are going to school, millions have little to show for it. By some accounts, 250 million children of primary school age cannot read even part of a sentence. Some of these children have never been to school (58 million); but more often, they perform poorly despite having spent several years in school, which reflects not only the poor quality of many schools but also the multiple disadvantages that characterize their early life.

Ensuring that all children—regardless of their place of birth and parental income or education level—have access to opportunities that will allow them to reach their full potential requires investing early in their development. To develop their cognitive, linguistic, socioemotional and physical skills and abilities, children need good nutrition and health, opportunities for play, nurture and learning with caregivers, early stimulation and protection from violence and neglect.

The Case for Early Interventions 

The arguments for investing in children early are simple and convincing. Early investment makes sense scientifically. The brain is almost fully developed by age three, providing a prime opportunity to achieve high gains. We know that the rapid rate of development of the brain’s neural pathways is responsible for an individual’s cognitive, social and emotional development, and there is solid evidence that nutrition and stimulation during the first 1,000 days of life are linked to brain development. 

Early investment makes sense in terms of equity. The playing field has the highest chances of being leveled early on, and we know that programs have a higher impact for young children from poorer families. In the United States, for example, increasing preschool enrollment to 100 percent for low-income children would reduce disparities in school readiness by 24 percent between black and white children and by 35 percent between Hispanic and white children. We also know that equalizing initial endowments through early childhood development (ECD) programs is far more cost-effective than compensating for differences in outcomes later in life. 

Early investment makes sense economically. Investing early prevents higher costs down the road, and interventions yield a high return on investment. There is evidence of the benefits for the individual and for society more broadly. For instance, at the level of the individual, in Jamaica children participating in an early childhood stimulation program were found to have 25 percent higher earnings 20 years later compared with children who did not participate. At the economy-wide level, eliminating malnutrition is estimated to increase gross domestic product by 1 to 2 percentage points annually, while countries with school systems that have a 10-percentage-point advantage in the proportion of students

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