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11. Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential

Author:
Heba Gowayed
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Drawing on a global and comparative ethnography, this presentation explores how Syrian men and women seeking refuge in a moment of unprecedented global displacement are received by countries of resettlement and asylum—the U.S., Canada, and Germany. It shows that human capital, typically examined as the skills immigrants bring with them that shape their potential, is actually created, transformed, or destroyed by receiving states’ incorporation policies. Since these policies derive from historically informed and unequal approaches to social welfare, refugees’ experiences raise a mirror to how states (re)produce inequality.
Topic:
Refugees, Inequality, Human Capital, Resettlement, and Asylum
Political Geography:
Middle East, Canada, Germany, Syria, and United States of America

12. Reproductive Injustice? A County-Level Analysis of the Impact of Abortion Restrictions on Abortion Rates

Author:
Raymond Caraher
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
Since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, state governments in the United States have been permitted to restrict abortion access up to the point where such restrictions do not place an ‘’undue burden” on those seeking abortion care. Since this ruling, abortion restrictions of various types and intensities have proliferated across the South and Midwest, especially since the 2010s. This paper uses a novel dataset of county-level abortion rates covering 20 years, as well as a database covering four types of restrictions which represent both “demand-side” restrictions (i.e., those which target abortion seekers) and “supply-side” restrictions (i.e., those which target abortion providers), to analyze the effect of abortion restrictions on abortion rates. Using a difference-in-differences design, the analysis finds that while both classes of abortion restrictions reduce the abortion rate, restrictions that target pregnant people seeking an abortion have a substantially larger effect on abortion rates. Leveraging the spatial heterogeneity of the county-level dataset, the analysis further finds that abortion restrictions have a substantially larger negative effect on abortion rates for counties which have a larger share of Black or Hispanic residents. When comparing high and low income counties, the results suggest that poorer counties experience a higher negative effect of abortion restrictions. Further, the study finds significant variation in the effect of different abortion restrictions by state. While demand-side laws consistently cause abortion rates to decrease, the results for supplyside laws are more heterogenous. Overall, the results suggest that repealing Roe v. Wade will have a significant and unequal effect on abortion rates, with marginalized communities experiencing a greater impact.
Topic:
Health Care Policy, Inequality, Legislation, Reproductive Rights, and Abortion
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

13. Women, Peace and Security and the 2022 National Security Strategy

Author:
Hans Hogrefe and Cassandra Zavislak
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Our Secure Future
Abstract:
This brief examines the inclusion of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in the Biden Administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy, and compares it to the ways in which the Trump Administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy addresses the full participation of women in our national security interests.
Topic:
Security, National Security, Women, Inequality, Peace, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
Russia, China, North America, and United States of America

14. A New Horizon in U.S. Trade Policy: Key Developments and Questions for the Biden Administration

Author:
Trevor Sutton and Mike Williams
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
This issue brief examines some of the key trade initiatives pursued by the Biden administration to date. It then sets out key questions facing U.S. trade policy in a global environment defined by volatility and renewed ambition to tackle the great challenges of the 21st century, such as climate change, inequality, and great power competition.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Treaties and Agreements, European Union, Inequality, Economy, Trade Policy, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, United States of America, and Americas

15. Los retos de Honduras en materia de inseguridad. El dilema de Xiomara Castro ante el populismo punitivo y de la seguridad.

Author:
Javier Lozano Cobos
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:
Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:
La militarización y el combate como herramienta casi exclusiva contra la violencia y la inseguridad ha sido el paradigma de profundo calado en Honduras y la mayor parte de la región, lo que implica la solución a los problemas de inseguridad en clave de guerra. Este conflicto asimétrico entre los grupos criminales y los Estados se recrudeció a raíz de la Guerra contra las Drogas iniciada por el presidente mexicano Calderón, y no es sino la continuación de las diversas guerras contra ya ensayadas en Centroamérica bajo inspiración de los EEUU. Con la llegada al poder de la presidenta hondureña, Xiomara Castro, se advertía un cambio en relación a las políticas de seguridad que no se enfocaran exclusivamente en la mano dura, sino que abordara la reforma integral del Estado priorizando la lucha contra la corrupción y la impunidad, así como la mejora de la calidad de la democracia. Una ola de populismo punitivo recorre la región, pero la mejora en los niveles de inseguridad en Honduras no será sostenible mediante el uso exclusivo de la fuerza ni estados de excepción.
Topic:
Corruption, Human Rights, War on Drugs, Democracy, Geopolitics, Inequality, Populism, and Militarization
Political Geography:
Latin America, Honduras, and United States of America

16. Not So Clear: Revisiting the Impacts of Cap-and-Trade on Environmental Justice

Author:
Michael Ash and Manuel Pastor
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
A recent article by Danae Hernandez-Cortes and Kyle Meng (HCM) suggests that the cap-and-trade program in California was accompanied by improvements in the degree of environmental inequity in the state. We note that that the model used to estimate this improvement is not well-designed to capture the variation in facility adjustment to the cap-and-trade program that is at the heart of the environmental justice debate about potential shifts in co-pollutant exposure. We also show that even if that were a proper approach, the estimates offered by HCM may be problematic due to data issues, including proper identification of facilities subject to the cap, shifting results when we require that facilities have observations both before and after the cap, and robustness when we apply their method estimates beyond their selected subsample to the broader range of facilities. As such, the environmental justice implications of California’s carbon market remain an unsettled empirical question.
Topic:
Inequality, Trade, Pollution, and Environmental Justice
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

17. Cuban Privilege: The Making of Immigrant Inequality in America

Author:
Susan Eckstein
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
About the speaker: Susan Eckstein is a Professor in the Pardee School of Global Studies and in the Sociology Department at Boston University. She has written numerous books and articles on Mexican urban poor, political-economic developments in Cuba, Cuban immigrants, immigration policy, impacts of Latin American revolutions, and edited books on Latin American social movements and social rights, and on immigrant impacts in their homelands.
Topic:
Poverty, Inequality, and Immigrants
Political Geography:
Cuba, North America, and United States of America

18. Industrial Feudalism and Wealth Inequalities

Author:
Hanna Szymborska and Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The possibility, first raised by Rudolf Hilferding, of stabilizing a capitalist economy through the operations of a ‘general cartel’, leaving only social and political ‘contradictions’ to disturb the functioning of the system, gave rise to a discussion among Marxists not only on whether such a stabilization was at all possible, but also on the nature and scope of those contradictions. This discussion had been anticipated in the 1890s in the work of the Polish Marxist Ludwik Krzywicki (1859 – 1941). He put forward the idea that, in a capitalist economy stabilized in this way, a state of ‘industrial feudalism’ would prevail, in which society would become stratified into social classes without the possibility of mobility between those classes. This analysis was extended in 1940s by Oskar Lange (1904-1965) as he attempted to make sense of the American New Deal and rediscovered in the 1950s by Tadeusz Kowalik (1926-2012). This paper explains the concept of industrial feudalism and argues that the main mechanism for such a stratification today is the unequal distribution of wealth, in the context of declining welfare provision.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, Inequality, Feudalism, Industry, and Wealth
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

19. Shifting Population Trends in Chicago and the Chicago Metro Area

Author:
William Scarborough, Amanda E. Lewis, and Ivan Arenas
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP), University of Illinois at Chicago
Abstract:
Few cities have seen such tremendous population changes as Chicago over the past century. By 1920, Chicago was the fastest growing city in the U.S. In 1950, the Chicago Metropolitan Area was the eighth largest in the world, with a larger population than Beijing, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro. Half a century later, population trends have changed dramatically. From 2000 to 2010, Chicago was the only U.S. city among the ten largest to lose population. Since 2010, Chicago’s population has grown slightly, but at rates lower than all other major U.S. cities. In this report, we explore these complex population trends for the city of Chicago and the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Factors driving population changes in the Chicago region are experienced differently across race. Drawing from a full century of data, we uncover distinct population trajectories for Black, Latinx, and white residents (the three largest groups in the area), showing how population growth for some groups often occurs alongside population decline for others. We also investigate the relationship of these population shifts to levels of inequality in the region, showing how population loss is often precipitated by increased racial inequality.
Topic:
Population, Inequality, Urban, Racism, and Suburbanization
Political Geography:
North America, Illinois, and United States of America

20. How Inequality and Polarization Interact: America’s Challenges Through a South African Lens

Author:
Brian Levy
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Over the past decade, toxic interactions between persistent inequality, racial tensions, and political polarization have undercut the promise of South Africa’s so-called rainbow miracle transition from apartheid to democracy. South Africa’s recent history sheds light on the United States’ recent political travails. It illustrates how interactions between inclusion and inequality on the one hand and political ideas and entrepreneurship on the other can fuel positive spirals of hope, economic dynamism, and political legitimacy—but can also trigger vicious, downward spirals of disillusion, anger, and political polarization. South Africa was able to transition from a society structured around racial oppression into a nonracial democracy whose new government promised “a better life for all.” Especially remarkable was the speed with which one set of national ideas appeared to give way to its polar opposite. From a society marked by racial dominance and oppression, there emerged the aspiration to build an inclusive, cooperative social order, underpinned by the principles of equal dignity and shared citizenship. In the initial glow of transition, South Africa’s citizens could hope for a better life for themselves and their children. In time, though, the promise wore thin. It became increasingly evident that the economic deck would continue to be stacked, and that the possibility of upward mobility would remain quite limited. Fueled by massive continuing inequities in wealth, income, and opportunity, South Africans increasingly turned from hope to anger. In the United States, a steady and equitably growing economy and a vibrant civil rights movement had fostered the hope of social and economic inclusion. But that hope turned to anger as the benefits of growth became increasingly skewed from the 1980s onward. In 2019, the U.S. economy was more unequal than it had been since the 1920s. Younger generations could no longer expect that their lives would be better than those of their parents. Such economic adversity and associated status anxiety can trigger a heightened propensity for us-versus-them ways of engaging the world. In both South Africa and the United States, polarization was fueled by divisive political entrepreneurs, and in both countries, these entrepreneurs leveraged inequality in ways that added fuel to the fire. In the 2010s, South Africa went through a new ideational reckoning, in part to correct the view that the transition to democracy had washed the country’s apartheid history clean. But opportunistic political entrepreneurs also pushed an increasingly polarized and re-racialized political discourse and pressure on public institutions, with predictable economic consequences. South Africa’s economy slid into sustained stagnation. Paralleling South Africa, America’s divisive political entrepreneurs also cultivated an us-versus-them divisiveness. However, unlike in South Africa, political entrepreneurs and economic elites in the United States also used divisive rhetoric as a way to persuade voters to embrace inequality-increasing policies that might otherwise not have won support. By the late 2010s, the risks were palpable in both South Africa and the United States of an accelerating breakdown of the norms and institutions that sustain inclusive political settlements. For South Africa, the reversals were not wholly unexpected, given the country’s difficult inheritance—though a recent turn away from angry populism suggests that, paradoxically, the rawness and recency of the anti-apartheid struggle and triumph might perhaps offer some immunization against a further-accelerating a downward spiral. But for the United States, the converse may be true. Increases in inequality since the 1980s, and their attendant social and political consequences, have been largely self-inflicted wounds. Complacency bred of long stability may, for decades, have been lulling the country into political recklessness at the inequality-ethnicity intersection, a recklessness that risks plunging the country into disaster. But this paper’s analysis is not all gloom and doom. South Africa’s escape from the shackles of apartheid teaches that, even in the most unlikely settings, downward spirals of despair and anger can transmute into virtuous spirals of hope. The country’s first fifteen years of democracy also show that, once a commitment to change has taken hold, making the shift to an inclusion-supporting economy is less daunting than it might seem. Reforms that foster “good enough inclusion” can be enough to provide initial momentum, with the changes themselves unfolding over time—and an initial round of change can bring in its wake a variety of positive knock-on effects. But lessons can be overlearned. Mass political mobilization was pivotal to South Africa’s shaking loose the shackles of apartheid—and new calls to the barricades might seem to be the obvious response to current political and governmental dysfunction. However, different times and different challenges call for different responses. In both contemporary South Africa and contemporary America, the frontier challenge is not to overthrow an unjust political order but to renew preexisting formal commitments to the idea that citizenship implies some shared purpose. Renewal of this kind might best be realized not by confrontation but rather by a social movement centered around a vision of shared citizenship, a movement that views cooperation in pursuit of win-win possibilities not as weakness but as the key to the sustainability of thriving, open, and inclusive societies.
Topic:
Governance, Democracy, Inequality, Institutions, and Polarization
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, North America, and United States of America