INTRODUCTION

Later this month, Egyptians will go to the polls, or attempt to, in order to vote in the country’s parliamentary elections. The elections will unlikely be a democratic affair in the Western sense. In fact, opposition candidates, voters, citizen groups—essentially everyone other than government representatives—are fully expecting the elections to be a violent and rigged episode. For easy reference, one can look to the June elections for the Shura Council, or upper house of Parliament, in which the governing National Democratic Party (NDP) managed to land 80 out of a possible 84 seats. Those elections were marked by violence and allegations of rampant violations.

Elections in Egypt are not generally democratic, they do not necessarily reflect the will of the people, and they will invariably usher in a house in which the NDP has an unshakeable majority. More so, the elected body has very little control over the government and none over the president, who, thanks to some creative constitutional amendments in 2007, can dissolve the Parliament at will. Election results are apparently so preordained that many have questioned the wisdom of participating at all. Opposition groups, among them the National Alliance for Change (NAC), led by former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head and current political reformer Mohamed ElBaradei, have been calling for a boycott. ElBaradei told reporters at a Ramadan Iftar meeting on September 7 that voting “would go against the national will.” Many political analysts and some members of the opposition have echoed the belief that participation in the elections only gives credence to a fundamentally flawed system and perpetuates the state myth of a democratic nation.

The above argument certainly has its merits, but it misses the point. Elections in Egypt are not about who wins seats—that is usually a foregone conclusion. They are about the “how and the what,” in the sense that they are oases of political activity, demand, and dissension in an otherwise arid climate. In that way, every election fought represents losses and gains for the respective participants in ways that invariably influence the following elections. Also, the ballot boxes can yield surprising results—as in the case of the 2005 elections when the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) gained a jawdropping 88 of 454 seats in the elections for the lower house. This outcome certainly would not have come about if the Brotherhood had not participated. To be sure, there are also significant, detrimental changes that happen as a direct consequence of the elections, among them constitutional amendments designed to hobble the opposition’s ability to field candidates and campaign. Still, for opposition parties and movements, boycotting the elections is the equivalent of throwing away the only political participation they have. It would mean relinquishing any visibility or influence and it would mean admitting to their supporters that they are essentially mere window dressings in the democratic façade. Arguably, this is a reason why these elections have only ever been boycotted once, in 1990. The Egyptian political arena is one where contestants scrabble for the smallest patch of ground. The high moral ground simply does not figure into it.

Downloads

• Download Full Report - English

INTRODUCTION

A year after President Hosni Mubarak’s fall, U.S.-Egypt relations are at an all-time low. Not, as many expected, because of the rise of Islamist parties, but because America’s longtime allies in the Egyptian military have whipped up anti-American sentiment at a feverish pace. It may have started as a political ploy, a way to build support on the street and highlight the army’s nationalist credentials, but the generals soon lost control. In January, the Egyptian government announced that sixteen Americans—including the son of a top U.S. official— would be put on trial, facing up to five years in prison. Their apparent crime was working for American nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and Freedom House—that offered support, funding, and election monitoring for Egypt’s uneven transition.

On March 1, the Egyptian government lifted the travel ban on seven Americans who were still in Egypt, allowing them to leave the country. A major diplomatic breach was avoided, giving the impression that the crisis had been resolved. This appears to be the interpretation of the Obama administration, which waived congressional conditions on military aid, citing the importance of maintaining a “strategic partnership” with Egypt.2 However, the charges against the Americans remain, and there is no sign that the American NGOs in question will be able to reopen anytime soon. More importantly, the vast majority of affected NGOs—which are Egyptian rather than American—still find themselves on trial and under attack.

The NGO episode, however worrying it is on its own, reflects something larger and more troubling: the slow descent from the national unity of the revolution to a fog of paranoia, distrust, and conspiracy theorizing. Who is with the revolution, and who isn’t? The roots of the problem lie in the uncertainly inherent in Egypt’s muddled transition. Unlike in Tunisia, where the Higher Committee for the Achievement of Revolutionary Objectives (HCARO)—accepted as legitimate by all of the country’s main political forces—was responsible for managing the transition, Egypt has featured various competing actors claiming their own distinct sources of power. The struggle for legitimacy between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated parliament, and the protest movement has created a fragmented political scene. Everyone wants to lead the transition, but no one wants to take full responsibility for the results.

Downloads

• Download the full paper

Editor’s note: This week the Democrats gather in Philadelphia to nominate a candidate for president and adopt a party platform. Given that there are no minority reports to the Democratic platform, it is likely that it will be adopted as-is this week. And so we can begin the comparison of the two major party platforms. For those who say there are no differences between the Republican and Democratic parties, just read the platforms side-by-side. In many instances, the differences are—as Donald Trump would say, yuuuge. But in one surprising instance, the two parties actually agree. This piece walks readers through one of the biggest contrasts, while an earlier piece by Elaine Kamarck detailed a striking similarity.

When it comes to Republicans and the environment, black is the new green. In addition to denouncing “radical environmentalists” and calling for dismantling the EPA, the platform adopted in Cleveland yesterday calls coal “abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource” and unequivocally opposes “any” carbon tax.

Meanwhile, Democrats are moving in the opposite direction. By the time the party’s draft 2016 platform emerged from the final regional committee meeting in Orlando, it contained a robust section on environmental issues in general and climate change in particular. One of the many amendments adopted in Orlando contains the following sentence: “Democrats believe that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases should be priced to reflect their negative externalities, and to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy and help meet our climate goals.” In plain English, there should be what amounts to a tax (whatever it may be called) on the atmospheric emissions principally responsible for climate change, including but not limited to CO2.

As Brookings’ Adele Morris pointed out in a recent paper, this proposal raises a host of design issues, including determining initial price levels, payers, recipients, and uses of revenues raised. It would have to be squared with existing federal tax, climate, and energy policies as well as with climate initiatives at the state level.

But these devilish details should not obstruct the broader view: To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that the platform of a major American political party has advocated taxing greenhouse gas emissions. Many economists, including some with a conservative orientation, will applaud this proposal. Many supporters and producers of fossils fuels will be dismayed.

It remains to be seen how the American people will respond. In a survey conducted in 2015 by Resources for the Future in partnership with Stanford University and the New York Times, 67 percent of the respondents endorsed requiring companies “to pay a tax to the government for every ton of greenhouse gases [they] put out,” with the proviso that all the revenue would be devoted to reducing the amount of income taxes that individuals pay. Previous surveys found similar sentiments: public support increases sharply when the greenhouse gas tax is explicitly revenue-neutral and declines sharply if it threatens an overall increase in individual taxes.

Once this plank of the Democratic platform becomes widely known, Republicans are likely to attack it as yet another example of Democrats’ propensity to raise taxes. The platform’s silence on the question of revenue-neutrality may add some credibility to this charge. Much will depend on the ability of the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee to clarify its proposal and to link it to goals the public endorses.

Often considered among the most self-interested and least transparent systems in American democracy, the decennial process to redraw legislative district boundaries is now in full swing. On Monday, experts will review the results coming in from the states and discuss initiatives—from public mapping to independent commissions—to open up redistricting. Thomas Mann explains how this round may be a start toward transparency.

In last night’s Pennsylvania primary, Hillary Clinton won a sweeping if not quite overwhelming victory, receiving 55 percent of the vote and reducing Barack Obama’s overall popular vote edge by more than 200,000. Because of the Democratic party’s system of proportional representation, she netted fewer than 15 pledged delegates. These results have quieted calls for her to leave the race and will probably slow the steady flow of superdelegates to Obama. Nonetheless, her path to the nomination remains steep.

The demographics of the Pennsylvania vote followed a now-familiar pattern. Obama won among voters younger than 40, while Clinton prevailed among older voters. Obama won in big cities and some inner suburbs; Clinton carried suburbs overall while winning more than 60 percent of the small town and rural vote. Clinton did 9 points worse among men than among women, who constituted 59 percent of last night’s voters. She received 62 percent of the vote from gun-owning households and almost three-fifths of the vote from union households. Obama carried voters from families making less than $15,000 and more than $150,000; Clinton carried everyone in between. She received 64 percent of the vote from high school graduates but only 48 percent from college graduates. Obama won 55 percent of the vote among those who consider themselves “very liberal,” while Clinton got 60 percent of the vote among self-described moderates. Clinton took 56 percent among long-time Democrats, while Obama took 62 percent of new Democratic primary voters—principally Republicans and Independents who registered as Democrats to participate, but also the 4 percent of the primary electorate that previously been unregistered.

There is evidence that religion, gender and race all figured in the results. Clinton received 58 percent of the white Protestant vote and a stunning 71 percent of white Catholics. Obama got 64 percent of those who profess no religion and 56 percent of those who never attend church. Clinton did 22 points better among those who said gender was important than among those who did not. (Intriguingly, men who said it mattered were also more likely to support Clinton.) By contrast, race appears to have been a negative for Obama: whites who said it mattered gave 75 percent of their votes to Clinton, versus only 58 percent for those who said it did not. While nearly half the whites for whom race mattered refused to say that they would be willing to support Obama in the general election, their sentiments may well soften in coming months as differences between the parties come to the fore.

The long campaign mattered, and it left some bruises. 68 percent of the voters said that Clinton had attacked unfairly; 50 percent thought Obama had. Nearly a quarter of the electorate thought that Clinton was solely responsible for unfair attacks, versus only 6 percent who thought Obama was. Only 57 percent of the electorate thought that Clinton was honest and trustworthy, versus 67 percent for Obama. Only 40 percent said they would be satisfied if either candidate won; 32 percent wanted only Clinton, and 23 percent only Obama. But however negative the contest may have turned, it appears to have worked to Clinton’s advantage: she received 57 percent among voters who decided during the last week before the primary, 5 points better than she did among those who decided earlier.

The results also confirmed the surge in concern about the economy. Fifty-five percent of the voters regarded the economy as the top issue, versus only 27 percent for the war in Iraq and a modest 14 percent for health care. Obama prevailed only among voters who gave top priority to Iraq, while Clinton received 54 percent of the health care voters and 58 percent of the economy voters.

Attention now shifts to the May 6 primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. Obama is expected to prevail in North Carolina, but Indiana offers a level playing field. A split decision would be likely to prolong the race, while an Obama sweep might well induce many undecided superdelegates to declare for him and bring this protracted contest to an end. In addition, Obama’s fundraising edge is becoming increasingly important. Not long into her victory speech, Clinton made an urgent pitch for new contributions. Facing a mounting debt and dwindling cash on hand, her ability to continue on until the end of the primary and caucus season in early June may well depend on the size and speed of her supporters’ response.

There will always be winners and losers as the global economy shifts and evolves. For a long period in the mid- to late 20th century, those losers were cities. Across the developed world, suburbanization shrank inner-city populations just as the industrial base that had once fueled growth succumbed to globalization.

At the end of the 20th century, as global cities such as New York and London pulled themselves out of the malaise of the 1970s, economic growth still eluded many smaller, formerly industrial cities across the United States and Europe. Catalyzing recovery in those older industrial areas was the focus of a decade-long effort of the London School of Economics and the Brookings Institution. As is clear in Cities for a Small Continent, a new book from Anne Power at LSE, the potential in these cities is greater now than ever. In our contribution to the volume, we examine the why and the how of economic transformation in several U.S. cities. 

There has been a lot of focus on the shift in location preferences that is bringing people back to cities. Significant shares of millennials as well as empty nesters are voting for urban communities where they can live, work, and play. At least as important is the restructuring of the U.S. economy—from a closed innovation system where corporations operated isolated research facilities, to an open, networked economy where corporations innovate in collaboration with universities, researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors. Innovation is critical, because as Antoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker assert in The Smartest Places on Earth, “the era of cheap [in manufacturing] is over; the era of smart has begun.”

These shifts in social preferences and market forces revalue cities and “cityness”—proximity, density, vibrancy, authenticity, and diversity. In particular, population and employment growth is occurring in downtowns and midtowns that have key institutions and assets: universities, medical campuses, cultural venues, historic buildings, walkable streets, and transit connectivity.

This regeneration is being delivered through a new localism in U.S. governance. Every day brings new bottom-up, city-led approaches to the training of workers, the education of children, the mitigation of climate change, the financing of infrastructure, and the development of affordable housing for our workers and quality places for our young and elderly populations.

Across this wide range of activity are some common characteristics.

Cities are harnessing the power of networks of government, business, civic, philanthropic, university, and community institutions and leaders rather than relying on public-sector solutions alone. The focus of the new American localism on unlocking the latent capacity and creativity of public, private, and civic networks differs markedly from the focus of traditional federalism on relationships between levels of government, particularly the federal government and the states.

Cities and metropolitan areas are also deploying capital from an array of public, private, and civic sources at the local, national, and even global levels. With federal investment dwindling, financing of critical projects will increasingly come from public-private collaboration and require experimentation around new forms of innovative finance.

Our chapter highlights four cities in the United States—Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Detroit—where this new localism has delivered tangible results. Though each city is at a different point of recovery, all have experienced growth in their cores that has been enabled and co-led by anchor institutions, major philanthropies, private-sector leaders, and civic groups. The biggest investments and decisions in these places have been the results of collaborative processes—proof that cities and the institutions that invest in them can be a source of long-term, strategic thinking that ultimately leads to healthier and more prosperous urban economies.

Similar efforts are spreading across the United Kingdom and Europe, though the systems there tend more toward public-sector leadership. In Sheffield, England, a concerted effort by business and academic institutions to “upskill” the manufacturing base, enabled by the flexibility of a “city deal” from the central government, has made the city a global center of advanced manufacturing. Bilbao, Spain evolved from a manufacturing base to a vibrant urban cultural hub by leveraging the value of publicly owned land and other assets for regeneration purposes. Stories such as these are featured throughout Cities for a Small Continent, as well as in a new series of seven case studies from LSE.

We are still in the early stages of this rebalancing of growth. Cities and metropolitan areas experienced decades of population and employment decentralization, poverty concentration, racial separation, and de-industrialization. Such patterns do not get changed overnight. But they are changing. As cities innovate, those solutions must be captured and codified and then replicated across the world.

Watch the May 24, 2016 LSE launch event for Cities for a Small Continent here: 

There is a marriage gap in America. This is not just a gap in choices and actions, but in norms and attitudes. Each generation is more liberal, on average, when it comes to issues like premarital relationships, same-sex marriage, and divorce. But generational averages can obscure other divides, including ideology—which in many cases is a more powerful factor.

Take opinions on the most important prerequisites for marriage, as explored in the American Family Survey conducted earlier this year by Deseret News and the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (disclosure: I am an adviser to the pollsters). There is widespread agreement that it is best to have a stable job and to have completed college before tying the knot. But there is less agreement in the 3,000-person survey on other questions, including premarital cohabitation.

In response to the question of whether it is “important to live with your future spouse before getting married,” a clear gap emerges between those who identify as Democrats and those who identify as Republicans. This gap trumps the generational one, with younger Republicans (under 40) more conservative than Democrats over the age of 40:

The importance of family stability for a child’s wellbeing and prospects is well-documented, not least in Isabel Sawhill’s book, Generation Unbound. The question is not whether stability matters, but how best to promote it. To the extent that biological parents stay together and provide a stable environment, it doesn’t much matter if they are married. For children living with both biological parents, there is no difference in outcomes between those being raised by a married couple compared to a cohabiting couple, according to research by Wendy Manning at Bowling Green State University.

But people who marry are much more likely to stay together:

Marriage, at least in America, does seem to act as an important commitment device, a “co-parenting” contract for the modern world, as I’ve argued in an essay for The Atlantic, “How to Save Marriage in America.”

Cohabitation can signal radically different situations. A couple who plan to live together for a couple of years, then marry, and then plan the timing of having children are very different from a couple who start living together, accidentally get pregnant, and then, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, get married.

There is some evidence that cohabitation is in fact becoming a more common bridge to marriage and commitment. First-time premarital cohabiting relationships are also lasting longer on average and increasingly turn into marriage: around seven in ten cohabiting couples are still together after three years, of whom four have married.

In the end what matters is planning, stability, and commitment. If cohabitation is a planned prelude to what some scholars have labeled “decisive marriages,” it seems likely to prove a helpful shift in social norms, by allowing couples to test life under the same roof before making a longer-term commitment. Sawhill’s distinction between “drifters” and “planners” in terms of pregnancy may also be useful when it comes to thinking about cohabitation, too.

During debates in Congress and in the legal battles testing its constitutionality, critics of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 imagined a host of unanticipated and debilitating consequences. The law's ban on party soft money and the regulation of electioneering advertising would, they warned, produce a parade of horribles: A decline in political speech protected by the First Amendment, the demise of political parties, and the dominance of interest groups in federal election campaigns.

The forecast that attracted the most believers — among politicians, journalists, political consultants, election-law attorneys and scholars — was the claim that Democrats would be unable to compete against Republicans under the new rules, primarily because the Democrats' relative ability to raise funds would be severely crippled. One year ago, Seth Gitell in The Atlantic Monthly summarized this view and went so far as to call the new law "The Democratic Party Suicide Bill." Gitell quoted a leading Democratic Party attorney, who expressed his private view of the law as "a fascist monstrosity." He continued, "It is grossly offensive ... and on a fundamental level it's horrible public policy, because it emasculates the parties to the benefit of narrow-focus special-interest groups. And it's a disaster for the Democrats. Other than that, it's great."

The core argument was straightforward. Democratic Party committees were more dependent on soft money — unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and individuals — than were the Republicans. While they managed to match Republicans in soft-money contributions, they trailed badly in federally limited hard-money contributions. Hence, the abolition of soft money would put the Democrats at a severe disadvantage in presidential and Congressional elections.

In addition, the argument went, by increasing the amount an individual could give to a candidate from $1,000 to $2,000, the law would provide a big financial boost to President Bush, who would double the $100 million he raised in 2000 and vastly outspend his Democratic challenger. Finally, the ban on soft money would weaken the Democratic Party's get-out-the-vote efforts, particularly in minority communities, while the regulation of "issue ads" would remove a potent electoral weapon from the arsenal of labor unions, the party's most critical supporter.

After 18 months of experience under the law, the fundraising patterns in this year's election suggest that these concerns were greatly exaggerated. Money is flowing freely in the campaign, and many voices are being heard. The political parties have adapted well to an all-hard-money world and have suffered no decline in total revenues. And interest groups are playing a secondary role to that of the candidates and parties.

The financial position of the Democratic party is strikingly improved from what was imagined a year ago. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who opted out of public funding before the Iowa caucuses, will raise more than $200 million before he accepts his party's nomination in Boston. The unusual unity and energy in Democrats' ranks have fueled an extraordinary flood of small donations to the Kerry campaign, mainly over the Internet. These have been complemented by a series of successful events courting $1,000 and $2,000 donors.

Indeed, since Kerry emerged as the prospective nominee in March, he has raised more than twice as much as Bush and has matched the Bush campaign's unprecedented media buys in battleground states, while also profiting from tens of millions of dollars in broadcast ads run by independent groups that are operating largely outside the strictures of federal election law.

The Democratic national party committees have adjusted to the ban on soft money much more successfully than insiders had thought possible. Instead of relying on large soft-money gifts for half of their funding, Democrats have shown a renewed commitment to small donors and have relied on grassroots supporters to fill their campaign coffers. After the 2000 election, the Democratic National Committee had 400,000 direct-mail donors; today the committee has more than 1.5 million, and hundreds of thousands more who contribute over the Internet.

By the end of June, the three Democratic committees had already raised $230 million in hard money alone, compared to $227 million in hard and soft money combined at this point in the 2000 election cycle. They have demonstrated their ability to replace the soft money they received in previous elections with new contributions from individual donors.

Democrats are also showing financial momentum as the election nears, and thus have been gradually reducing the Republican financial advantage in both receipts and cash on hand. In 2003, Democrats trailed Republicans by a large margin, raising only $95 million, compared to $206 million for the GOP. But in the first quarter of this year, Democrats began to close the gap, raising $50 million, compared to $82 million for Republicans. In the most recent quarter, they narrowed the gap even further, raising $85 million, compared to the Republicans' $96 million.

Democrats are now certain to have ample funds for the fall campaigns. Although they had less than $20 million in the bank (minus debts) at the beginning of this year, they have now banked $92 million. In the past three months, Democrats actually beat Republicans in generating cash — $47 million, compared to $31 million for the GOP.

The party, therefore, has the means to finance a strong coordinated and/or independent-spending campaign on behalf of the presidential ticket, while Congressional committees have the resources they need to play in every competitive Senate and House race, thanks in part to the fundraising support they have received from Members of Congress.

Moreover, FEC reports through June confirm that Democratic candidates in those competitive Senate and House races are more than holding their own in fundraising. They will be aided by a number of Democratic-leaning groups that have committed substantial resources to identify and turn out Democratic voters on Election Day.

Democrats are highly motivated to defeat Bush and regain control of one or both houses of Congress. BCRA has not frustrated these efforts. Democrats are financially competitive with Republicans, which means the outcome will not be determined by a disparity of resources. Put simply, the doomsday scenario conjured up by critics of the new campaign finance law has not come to pass.