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11. Monetary Policy and Racial Inequality

Author:
Alina Bartscher, Moritz Kuhn, Moritz Schularick, and Paul Wachtel
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The racial tensions that spread across the United States in 2020 have caught the attention of monetary policymakers and focused concern on the size and persistence of the gap between both the income and wealth of black and white households. There is widespread recognition that despite some decline in overt labor market discrimination, gains in educational opportunities, and income growth of black households since the onset of the civil rights movement, the gaps persist and have even grown larger by some measures. According to the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the median wealth of a white household was $184,390, compared with only $20,730 for the median black household. The typical black household owns only about 11 percent of the wealth of the typical white household. The income gap is smaller but still large; the median income of black households ($38,688) is 58 percent of the median income of white households ($67,196).
Topic:
Race, Monetary Policy, Inequality, and Economic Policy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

12. American Bubbles: Politics, Race, and Religion in Americans’ Core Friendship Networks

Author:
Robert Jones, Natalie Jackson, Diana Orces, Ian Huff, and Maddie Snodgrass
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
PRRI: Public Religion Research Institute
Abstract:
To better understand the composition of Americans’ core friendship networks, PRRI designed a study to assess the scope and diversity of Americans’ social relationships. The method of measuring Americans’ core social networks was modeled after the General Social Survey and follows up on a study PRRI conducted in 2013. Respondents were asked to name people with whom they “discussed important matters” in the previous six months, regardless of the nature of the relationship or the frequency of interaction. This approach is designed to measure the ways in which individuals’ choices and attitudes are influenced by their family and close friends.[1]
Topic:
Politics, Race, Religion, Social Cohesion, Social Identities, and Social Exclusion
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

13. Dangerously Divided: How Race and Class Shape Winning and Losing in American Politics, Zoltan L. Hajnal

Author:
Natalie Masuoka
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Explanations for American voting behavior and attitudes have taken on a curious frame since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, such that there have been growing claims that race is no longer central to American politics. Obama’s election was labeled evidence of a new “post-racial” America. Then, when Donald Trump was elected in 2016, public narratives emphasized the role of social class by pointing to the voting bloc of white, working-class, and rural voters who had helped decide the outcome of the election. Zoltan L. Hajnal’s Dangerously Divided joins an important collection of recent academic work that directly challenges the argument about the reduced role of race in American politics. Hajnal does not sugarcoat his position: “A key aspect of this story is not just that race matters but also that it eclipses the other important dividing lines in American society” (p. 13). Race has always been a core feature of American politics, and it is present even in the constitutional Framers’ debates over the structure of government. The interpretation that recent events indicate a reduced role of race discounts the historical centrality that race has always played in American government. Hajnal offers empirical evidence and an unambiguous argument that race continues to direct most patterns in American politics.
Topic:
Politics, Race, Elections, Book Review, Political Science, and Class
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

14. Racial Reckoning in the United States: Expanding and Innovating on the Global Transitional Justice Experience

Author:
Ashley Quarcoo and Medina Husaković
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The United States is in a profound moment of public reckoning with its history of racial injustice. In the time since George Floyd’s murder, national and local initiatives seeking truth, redress, and reform (TRR) for historical racial injustices have multiplied across the country. These efforts include national proposals for a truth, racial healing, and transformation commission and a reparations commission, as well as dozens of subnational initiatives on reparations, truth, and reform. Diverse in form, these efforts are united in their goal of seeking remedies for state-sanctioned racial violence and discrimination. This emergent TRR movement is drawing deeply from the field of transitional justice. Transitional justice is a global practice designed to help countries reconcile with a history of past human rights abuses. While it is traditionally used in countries transitioning from conflict and authoritarianism, U.S. stakeholders are adapting its tools—like truth commissions, reparations, and institutional reforms—as well as its lessons for local purposes. This working paper investigates the transitional justice approaches and lessons most relevant for the United States’ TRR community in the present moment through three case studies: Brazil, South Africa, and Northern Ireland. Together, these case studies surface a number of lessons, relevant for both practitioners and donors, on initiating and sustaining TRR initiatives appropriate for the U.S. context. The case study of Brazil reveals the importance of confronting the legacies of amnesty and the ways in which amnesty can license collective forgetting about the brutality and impacts of past harms. The study also demonstrates the tremendous contributions that subnational truth commissions make in generating rich, new findings that complicate a larger narrative, as well as in developing locally relevant recommendations. In failing to fully capitalize on subnational contributions, the case of Brazil also demonstrates the importance of coordinating subnational and national TRR efforts and in leveraging a national commission to integrate and amplify local findings. South Africa provides a powerful example of how a truth commission can be a vessel for reshaping public memory and national identity, using nationally televised public hearings, emotional victim testimony, and respected national leaders to engage the population. However, South Africa’s case also shows the limits of a process that focused predominantly on individual human rights violations and invested less in investigating both the structural factors that enabled those abuses and the socioeconomic dimensions of harm. With the proper mandate, resources, and protocols, institutional hearings can be a critical tool for truth commissions to engage in analysis of structural harms. Finally, the case study of Northern Ireland demonstrates the potential limits of truth telling and the importance of focusing on reforms that remedy the relationship between the state and the citizens that have been harmed by its actions and policies. Northern Ireland’s Independent Commission on Policing pioneered a new approach to policing based on community partnership, human rights, and accountability that has led to measurable change in public opinion toward the police. Further, Northern Ireland’s success in addressing socioeconomic drivers of conflict can be traced to its affirmative approach to mainstreaming the goal of economic equality into its governance systems. Together, these cases reveal important ways that the United States can learn from and innovate on the global practice of transitional justice as it seeks to capture the opportunity of this moment.
Topic:
Race, Social Movement, Transitional Justice, and Protests
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

15. “Baby Won't You Please Come Home:” Studying Ethnoracial Segregation Trends in New Orleans Pre and Post Hurricane Katrina

Author:
Nathan Babb
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
This paper explores the ethnoracial segregation trends of New Orleans, Louisiana between the years 2000, 2010, and 2018. It studies the effect of Hurricane Katrina—which struck in August 2005—on population figures and racial composition within two geographic units of study in Orleans parish: neighborhoods and census tract block groups. Since Hurricane Katrina, White residents have returned in larger numbers than Black residents, and particularly so in neighborhoods that were predominantly Black before the storm. In 2019, New Orleans had 100,000 fewer people than before the storm—nearly the same as the number of Black residents who have not returned. Using a Gibbs-Martin index, which measures racial diversity, the paper finds that decreases in population at the census block group level are associated with racial “diversifying.” This trend invites a conversation on the normative interpretations of racial heterogenization, its causes, and its consequences: who bears the costs of increased “diversity” and what is the historical backdrop it operates under?
Topic:
Race, Natural Disasters, Governance, Inequality, Domestic Policy, Disaster Management, and Segregation
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

16. China and America: From Trade War to Race and Culture Confrontation

Author:
Walter Woon
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The Thucydides Trap is an intellectual trap for the unwary when uncritically applied to China. China is not a rising power; it is a returning power. The psychology is different. Misapprehending the nature of the problem will exacerbate it. First and foremost, it is essential to recognize that it is not “China” and “the Chinese” that challenge America’s dominance. America’s adversary is the People’s Republic of China (PRC) led by the Communist Party of China (CCP). The Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan has been an ally of America since World War II. The millions of people of Chinese descent abroad are not automatically aligned with the PRC. To refer unthinkingly to the “Chinese” challenge is intellectually flabby and politically misguided.
Topic:
Race, Culture, Trade Wars, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

17. Is the United States at Risk of Large-Scale Civil Conflict?

Author:
Sarah Cliffe
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
The protests that have roiled the United States over the past weeks are rooted in an issue at the heart of the divisions in American society: racism, and in particular racism within the security forces. But their extent and impact are unprecedented in recent decades. What makes this moment different from previous waves of protests? This briefing by Sarah Cliffe draws on comparative global analysis to ask whether the US now risks large-scale civil conflict. It examines how the combination of a public health crisis, systemic generalized inequality and racial disparities, growing socioeconomic hardship, the political manipulation of racial and religious identities and the potential trigger of the forthcoming presidential election have exacerbated long-standing tensions in American society.
Topic:
Race, Protests, Crisis Management, Police, COVID-19, and Civil Unrest
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

18. ‘It Could Happen Here’: The US Election and the Threat of Violence

Author:
Simon Adams
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
In June this year, for the first time in our history, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect published an “Atrocity Alert” for the United States. That alert was issued just nine days after an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, was choked to death by police in Minneapolis. Floyd’s death led to massive protests in more than 100 US cities and towns, and some rioting. As we wrote at the time: “While the murder of George Floyd in police custody does not constitute a mass atrocity crime, it has exposed deep divisions in US society. All law enforcement officials involved in the extrajudicial killing of civilians should be held legally accountable and punished to the full extent of the law. Crowd control measures deployed against peaceful protests must be consistent with international standards. The security forces must also strictly comply with the principles of necessity, proportionality, legality and precaution to help prevent any further deaths or serious injuries.” Now the United States faces an even greater challenge. The election on 3 November is expected to be one of the most divisive and dangerous in US history. Since March the United States has not only endured the largest COVID-19 death toll in the world, but also crushing unemployment levels and a disturbingly fractured political discourse. While the structural problems in US society – such as its history of racial violence and overly-militarized policing – pre-date the presidency of Donald Trump, he has exacerbated them. Trump’s attempt to cast doubt over the legitimacy of the impending election, combined with his unwillingness to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, poses a threat to American democracy. Many Americans believe that existential issues of race, identity and civil rights are also on the ballot.
Topic:
Race, Social Movement, Elections, Protests, Justice, and Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

19. Striking a Blow for Unity? Race and Economics in the 2010 New Orleans Mayoral Election

Author:
Marek Steedman, Iliyan Iliev, Marcus Coleman, and Allan McBride
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Marek Steedman, Iliyan Iliev, Marcus Coleman, and Allan McBride analyze the 2010 New Orleans mayoral election. They find that racial, economic, and partisan context affected voting behavior. They argue that analytical approaches that account for the effects of social context on political behavior are important to understanding urban politics.
Topic:
Economics, Race, Elections, Political Science, and Urban
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

20. American Absurdities

Author:
M. Taratuta
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
East View Information Services
Abstract:
I am prepared to assert that there is no idea so wonderful that it can- not be brought to the point of absurdity, or even turned into its exact opposite. Worse yet, lots of wonderful ideas often just end up reaching an ignominious end.
Topic:
Race, Social Movement, Elections, Discrimination, Protests, Police, and Black Lives Matter (BLM)
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America