Hinckley Journal 2017

Hinckley Journal of Politics

2017 Volume 18 Copyright Š 1998 - 2017 by the Hinckley Institute of Politics and the University of Utah

The Hinckley Journal of Politics is published annually by the Hinckley Institute of Politics for students, public officials, university officials, and the public. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the University of Utah, the Hinckley Institute of Politics, the Student Media Council, or the editorial board. Please direct your correspondence to the Journal Editors, Hinckley Institute of Politics, 332 South 1400 East, Bldg. 72 Room 102, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, (801) 581-8501, or email: info@hinckley.utah.edu.

Hinckley Journal of Politics — 2017 Editorial Board

Director Associate Director Associate Director Former Associate Director

Jason Perry Morgan Lyon Cotti Jayne Nelson Courtney H. McBeth

Editor Editor

Katie Crawford Dalton Edwards

Technical Editor

Max Chaffetz

Faculty Editor

Edmund Fong, Department of Political Science, Division of Ethnic Studies

Faculty Advisors

Edmund Fong, Department of Political Science, Division of Ethnic Studies Tobias Hofmann, Department of Political Science

Student Board Members

Max Chaffetz Ryan Holbrook Hunter Howe Alya Hussain Huy Huynh Zoe Kozlowski Jennifer Martins Samin Mirfakhrai Cadie Payne Connor Richards John Richardson Mohan Sudabattula Shelby Wayment Evan Williams

Printing

Sun Print Solutions

Online Publishing

J. Willard Marriott Library

Funding

Student Media Council Hinckley Institute of Politics Associated Students of the University of Utah

Art Direction

Matt Lusty

Layout Production

Katie Crawford Matt Lusty

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table of contents

2017, vol. 18

STUDENT RESEARCH PAPERS Property Taxes & Water Development Projects: A Feedback Loop in Utah Water Policy.....................................................................................................Weston Wood............1 Homelessness: A Rights-based Perspective...............................................................................................................Alexander F. Mayer............7 The Irrational Fear of Terrorism Regarding Migrants from Conflict Zones: Analysis of the Syrian Civil War..........................................................................................................Anthony Calacino..........13 Prison Privatization: A Politics of Sight...............................................................................................................................................Ellie Fuller..........23 Hidden Values: American Indian Epistemologies in Federal Land Management............................................................Olivia Juarez...........32

PUBLIC OFFICIAL OPINION ESSAYS Every Student Should Feel Safe in Shool........................Salt Lake City School Board Member Katherine Kennedy..........41 Afforable Care Act....................................................................................................................Utah Senator Gene Davis..........43

HINCKLEY FELLOW SUBMISSION How Women’s Representation in Elective Office Affects Policy Innovation at the State Level....Sharon Mastracci..........45

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a word from the director

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s the Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics, I am pleased to introduce the 2017 Hinckley Journal of Politics.

This edition marks the 18th year that the Hinckley Institute has featured research papers written by undergraduate students at the University of Utah. We are proud to sponsor this journal in partnership with the Political Science Department as a place where our students can publish meaningful research and elected officials can opine on important issues of our day.

This compilation could not have been produced without the diligence of its 2017 co-editors Katie Crawford and Dalton Edwards. Additionally, I would like to recognize the tireless efforts of our faculty editor and advisor Dr. Edmund Fong, our student editorial board members, and Hinckley Institute staff.

Through the various opportunities provided by the Hinckley Institute, University of Utah students can apply the theories and concepts they learn in the classroom to real-world experiences. To date, the Hinckley Institute has placed and supported more than 7,500 interns in political offices throughout Utah, in Washington, DC; and in more than 50 countries on six continents. Interns are required to complete research papers on issues pertinent to their internships—reflecting on practical ideas and drawing conclusions about the significant political questions of the day. The Hinckley Journal pools from the best and most compelling of these papers, as well as from noteworthy student research from across campus.

We hope you enjoy reading the 2017 Hinckley Journal of Politics and appreciate your continued support of the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Sincerely,

Jason P. Perry Director, Hinckley Institute of Politics Vice President of Government Relations, University of Utah

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a letter from the editors

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t was tempting to begin this letter with a definition of “politics,” since that seems to be the hot word warming the lips of everybody these days. Whether a gruff relative rapt with the opportunity to foist their opinions into the universe or a starry-eyed freshman ready to steer the ship of change, it’s a word universally known and, at one point or another, the bearer of existential, gut-deep angst and frustration.

That is to say, it is inescapable, the word, and yet who can say precisely what it means—if anything?

Facebook is flooded with heated yet unsubstantial political commentary, and newscasters are viewed as chronically opposed to fairness, consistency, and substantive dialogue. For most of us, politics is too complicated, too hair-pullingly boring, and too filled with ego and intolerance. So… what do we do? How do we become motivated to care about this word we all hear but of which we have dubious understanding?

Luckily, the answer permeates everything around us. Frustration and anger rarely stagnate. Deep-rooted concern is converted into civic action: red-inked letters to congressmen and congresswomen, support for local nonprofits, and town hall meetings filled with people for whom the word “participant” is a gross understatement. In times like these, if history is at all a good log of regular folks’ reactions to irregular circumstances, activism will become the primary language of your community members, friends, and co-workers. Eventually, it will become your language too. Auspiciously, it seems to have already struck you. Why else would you be holding this bundle of glossy white pages (or scrolling through this PDF)?

Herein, you will find what you have been looking for. Voices. Perspectives. Arguments that hail from the place in our hearts from which we are convinced that chaos can be ordered through policy, thought, and love. Read further and you will find—in place of apathy—eight essays about social, cultural, and environmental justice. If anything defines the 18th volume of the Hinckley Journal of Politics, it is that politics affects everyone on a personal, human level, all the time, all over.

Moreover, this journal chronicles student perspectives, selected and edited by students, and manifested by a group run and organized by students. None of this would have been possible without the help and support of the Hinckley Institute of Politics’ dedicated staff, whose passion and hard work turn this and every other initiative from unlikely daydreams into impactful and sharable little miracles. We also warmly extend our gratitude to our editorial board, whose comments, questions, and insights made us doggedly question our own preconceptions and ideas—the mark of a truly innovative, life-enhancing organization of people. We are moved and thankful to have gotten to know and work with each of you.

We think that the word “politics” is best captured by the definition, “the art or science of governing people well.” Those who don’t see the art (therefore the potential for transcendent beauty) or the science (therefore the need to have and follow testable, reliable data) of politics and yet make a claim to govern are performing bad politics. It is our job, all of us, to recognize bad politics when we see it, to be active not apathetic, and understand why it is important to care. This is the task set before us. Let’s give it all we’ve got.

Sincerely,

Dalton Edwards Co-Editor

Katie Crawford Co-Editor

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editors’ notes HINCKLEY JOURNAL OF POLITICS’ MISSION STATEMENT

the research papers and opinion essays within the Journal thought-provoking and timely.

The Hinckley Journal of Politics is the only undergraduate-run journal of politics in the nation and strives to publish scholarly papers of exceptional caliber from University of Utah students in the fields of politics and public policy as well as opinion essays from local, state, and national public officials. Contributing research articles and opinion essays should address relevant issues by explaining key problems and potential solutions. Student research papers should adhere to the highest standards of research and analysis. The Journal covers local, national, and global issues and embraces diverse political perspectives. With this publication, the Hinckley Institute hopes to encourage reader involvement in the world of politics.

STUDENT RESEARCH PAPER SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

GENERAL COMMENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It has been our honor and a pleasure to serve as editors for the 18th edition of the Hinckley Journal of Politics.

First and foremost, we would like to thank our outstanding faculty advisor and faculty editor Dr. Edmund Fong for his guidance and assistance. He continuously exceeded our expectations, and we greatly appreciated his insight while crafting this journal. We are also incredibly thankful for the student authors and public officials who contributed to this year’s Hinckley Journal.

Without their contributions, this publication would not have been possible. The Journal is one of many noteworthy oppoprtunities the Hinckley Institute provides for undergraduate students, and we thank the countless supporters of the Hinckley Institute who make these opportunities possible. We are especially appreciative of the generosity of the Hinckley family for noting the need for student involvement in practical politics and the principle of citizen involvement in government and acting upon their vision. We thank the Hinckley staff for their dedication to students. We also extend our gratitude to the Hinckley Journal of Politics’ Editorial Board for their work, including reviewing and selecting student papers. We are especially grateful for Max Chaffetz, our Technical Editor, for his extensive work editing submissions. Finally, we commend all students who are involved in the political process, whether as interns, campaign volunteers, or scholars. We hope you will find

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The Hinckley Journal of Politics welcomes research paper submissions from University of Utah students of all academic disciplines, as well as opinion essays from Utah’s public officials. Any political science-related topic is acceptable. The scope can range from University issues to international issues. Research papers should adhere to submission guidelines found on the Hinckley Journal web site: www.hinckley.utah.edu/publications/ journal.

STUDENT RESEARCH PAPER REVIEW AND NOTIFICATION PROCEDURES Research paper submissions will be reviewed by the Journal editors, members of the editorial board, and faculty advisors. Submission of a research paper does not guarantee publication. Papers that do not adhere to submission and style guidelines will not be considered for publication. Acceptance to the Journal is competitive.

The co-editors will notify potential authors when the decision has been made as to which papers have been selected for publication.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR PUBLIC OFFICIAL OPINION ESSAYS The Journal will consider for publication opinion essays written by national, state, and local public officials. The opinions expressed by public officials are not necessarily those of the University of Utah, the Hinckley Institute of Politics, the Student Media Council, or the editorial board. Officials should contact the Journal editors for additional information.

CORRESPONDENCE MAY BE SENT TO University of Utah Hinckley Institute of Politics 332 South 1400 East Bldg. 72, Room 102 Salt Lake City, UT 84112-9151

about the Hinckley Institute of Politics

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he Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah is a bipartisan institute dedicated to engaging students in governmental, civic, and political processes; promoting a better understanding and appreciation of politics; and training ethical and visionary students for service in the American political system. Robert H. Hinckley founded the Hinckley Institute of Politics in 1965 with the vision to “teach students respect for practical politics and the principle of citizen involvement in government.”

Since its founding, the Hinckley Institute has provided a wide range of programs for students, public school teachers, and the general public including: internships, courses, forums, scholarships, and mentoring. The Hinckley Institute places emphasis on providing opportunities for practical experience in politics.

INTERNSHIP PROGRAM A nationally recognized program and the heart of the Hinckley Institute, the Hinckley internship program places more than 300 students every year in political and government offices, non-profits, campaigns, and think tanks. The Institute provides internships opportunities to students from all majors for academic credit in Washington, DC, at the Utah Legislature, in local offices and campaigns, and in more than 50 countries.

CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT MINOR The Hinckley Institute of Politics is proud to offer one of the nation’s only minors in Campaign Management.

The program is designed to provide undergraduate students the opportunity to learn the theories and practices that will enable them to be effective participants in election and advocacy campaigns. Students are required to complete a political internship and an interdisciplinary series of courses in areas such as campaign management; interest groups and lobbying; voting, elections, and public opinion; media; and other practical politics.

PUBLIC FORUMS AND EVENTS The Hinckley Institute hosts weekly Hinckley Forums where political speakers address public audiences in the Hinckley Caucus Room. Hinckley Forums enable students, faculty, and community members to discuss a broad range of political concepts with local, national, and international politicians, ambassadors, activists,

and academics. Past guests include Presidents Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford; Senators Orrin Hatch, John McCain, Harry Reid, and Joe Leiberman; Utah Governors Michael Leavitt, Jon Huntsman, Jr., and Gary Herbert; and many other notable politicians and professionals. The speeches are broadcast on KUER 90.1 FM radio and KUED TV. SCHOLARSHIPS AND LOANS The Hinckley Institute provides more than $730,000 in internship and academic scholarships to students through the Robert H. Hinckley, Abrelia Clarissa Hinckley, Anne and John Hinckley, Senator Pete Suazo, Robert F. Bennett, and Scott M. Matheson scholarship funds.

The Hinckley Institute is also the University of Utah’s representative for the Harry S. Truman Congressional Scholarship and the James Madison Fellowship—two of America’s most prestigious scholarships.

HUNTSMAN SEMINAR FOR TEACHERS The Huntsman Seminar in Constitutional Government for Teachers is a week-long seminar sponsored by the Huntsman Corporation. The primary focus of the seminar is to improve the quality of civic education in Utah schools by bringing Utah educators together with political experts and visiting politicians to discuss current events in Utah and American politics. The Huntsman Seminar is truly a unique opportunity for teachers to gain an in-depth understanding of local and national political issues.

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE The department of Political Science values its relationship with the Hinckley Institute for the opportunities the Institute provides students to enrich their academic studies with experiences in practical politics. The Institute’s programs complement the academic offerings of the Political Science Department. Courses are available in five subfields of the discipline: American Politics, International Relations, Comparative Politics, Political Theory, and Public Administration. If you have questions about the department and its programs, contact the office at 332 South 1400 East, Bldg. 72 Room 102, (801) 581-7031.

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robert h. hinckley of Contract Settlement after WWII. In these positions, Hinckley proved to be, as one of his colleagues stated, “One of the real heroes of the Second World War.” Also in 1946, Hinckley and Edward Noble jointly founded the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and over the next two decades helped to build this company into the major television network it is today.

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man of vision and foresight, a 20th-century pioneer, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur, and an untiring champion of education and of the American political system—all are apt descriptions of Robert H. Hinckley, a Utah native and tireless public servant. Robert H. Hinckley began his political career as a state legislator from Sanpete County and a mayor of Mount Pleasant.

Hinckley then rose to serve as the Utah director for the New Deal program under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Hinckley went on to serve in various capacities in Washington, DC, from 1938 to 1946 and again in 1948.

During those years he established and directed the Civilian Pilot Training Program, served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Air, and directed the Office

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Spurred by the adverse political climate of the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, Hinckley recognized the need to demonstrate that politics was “honorable, decent, and necessary” and to encourage young people to get involved in the political process. After viewing programs at Harvard, Rutgers, and the University of Mississippi, Hinckley believed the time was right for an institute of politics at the University of Utah. So in 1965, through a major contribution of his own and a generous bequest from the Noble Foundation, Robert H. Hinckley established the Hinckley Institute of Politics to promote respect for practical politics and to teach the principle of citizen involvement in government.

Hinckley’s dream was to make “Every student a politician.” The Hinckley Institute of Politics strives to fulfill that dream by sponsoring internships, scholarships forums, mentoring, and a minor in Campaign Management. Today, more than 50 years later, Hinckley’s dream is a reality. Over 6,000 students have participated in programs he made possible through the Hinckley Institute of Politics. Many of these students have gone on to serve as legislators, members of Congress, government staffers, local officials, and judges. All participants have, in some measure, become informed, active citizens.

Reflecting on all of his accomplishments, Robert H. Hinckley said, “The Hinckley Institute is one of the most important things I will have ever done.”

S T U D E N T R E SE A R C H PA P E R S

The Hinckley Journal of Politics

2017

Property Taxes & Water Development Projects: A Feedback Loop in Utah Water Policy

By Weston Wood University of Utah

Most western states have phased out and thoroughly critiqued the practice of collecting property taxes for water development and delivery. This study finds that property taxes continue to be a predominant source of income for most Water Conservancy and Metropolitan Water districts in the state of Utah. I argue that not only does this reiterate the well-studied claim that water prices are artificially reduced by district-levied property taxes, but also results in massive water development to satisfy Utah’s record-high water consumption resulting from these lowered rates. Sustainability is fiscal as well as ecological. First, I synopsize the history and criticism of this practice. Next, I present data sourced from district financials that demonstrate how property taxes derive significant revenue. I conclude by reaffirming the tax’s causal link to environmentally and fiscally costly water development and advocating for its discontinuation.

Keywords: Water conservation, water policy, water economics, property taxes, water districts, water development, Lake Powell pipeline, Bear River Development, Utah

Introduction Two decades ago, Governor Mike Leavitt asked “why? Why should we raise the property tax, when owning property has little or nothing to do with the actual water use” (Bernick, 1995)? At the time, property tax revenue from Utah’s water districts allowed for especially cheap water fees, which led Utah to boast some of the highest water rates and water usage per-capita in the country. To adequately prepare for Utah’s future, Leavitt argued a conservation ethic. 20 years later, Utah has yet to embrace conservation in preparing for our future water conditions. In 2015’s A Performance Audit of Utah Water Needs, the state auditor found that faulty data is being used to justify big development like the proposed Lake Powell Pipeline, while cheaper options are being ignored (Coleman, Behunin, & Cabalagan, 2015, i-iv). While these water agencies claim the state is running out of water, this audit proves that an adequate supply remains (Coleman et al., 2015, 9-24) and current policy promotes waste. Thus, this study asks: Do property taxes continue to be a significant source of income for Utah’s water districts, resulting in more unnecessary large water development projects?

I have found that property taxes continue to be a predominant source of income. Not only does this reiterate the well-studied claim that water prices are artificially reduced by district-levied property taxes, but also results in massive water development to satisfy Utah’s record-high consumption. Removal of the tax subsidies would not only transmit the full cost of water to the consumer and lead to a reduced level of consumption, it would also negate the need for costly and destructive water development projects. The Lake Powell Pipeline currently being pushed by the Division of Water Resources and multiple water districts is a key example of this phenomenon, and I will use it as a case study

as follows. First, I will review literature that explains how property taxes significantly reduce the price of water and result in increased water consumption, including a recent scathing economic analysis of the Lake Powell Pipeline. Then, I will present data uncovered from over a hundred water district financial reports from the past five years, reaffirming the dominant role property tax revenues play in Utah water economics while focusing on the districts that are the would-be recipients of Lake Powell Pipeline water in particular. I will demonstrate how property taxes facilitate massive water development projects and advocate for their removal in order to facilitate healthier use of Utah’s water resources. Water is obviously vital to life in the Beehive State. It’s critical we interrogate and explore how best to use it.

Property Taxes Promote Utah’s Water Waste Experts from across the political and professional spectrum agree: Utah is one of the most irresponsible states with its water usage and allocation. Utah has some of the highest water usage per-capita in the country, some of the nation’s cheapest water rates, and is one of the few currently implementing these property tax subsidies. The Utah Division of Water Resources reports that “the average annual amount of water used by residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional water users in the year 2000 was 293 gallons per capita per day (gpcd)” (Coleman et al., 2015, 6). This number was determined for the year 2000 and is being used as the baseline for all of their water needs projections (Coleman et. al., 2015, 6). According to the United States Geological Survey, Utah residents alone used 167 gpcd annually in 2010, ranking the state as the second highest in the country (Coleman et al., 2015, 7).

This is significantly higher than many of Utah’s western neighbors, including Colorado at 111 gpcd annually and Nevada at 134 gpcd

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PROPERTY TAXES & WATER DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS: A FEEDBACK LOOP IN UTAH WATER POLICY

annually (Coleman et al., 2015, 7). In Midwestern and Eastern states with less arid climates, the difference is even more pronounced. For example, Iowa residents use only 65 gpcd annually, “suggesting that our state can better manage its water use” (Coleman et al., 2015, 7). Utah residents use more water individually than almost any other citizens of the country, which indicates better management practices exist, and an expanded water supply is not necessary.

Second, this high usage is directly tied to Utah’s exceptionally low water retail prices. According to a series of studies by the Utah Rivers Council, Utah residents have been some of the most wasteful with their water due to how cheap it is for the consumer. The statewide average estimated cost per 1,000 gallons of water was $1.15 in 2001, opposed to a national average of $1.96 (Utah Rivers Council, 2001, 8). This difference plays out even more dramatically when comparing individual municipalities in the American West. Tucson’s estimated cost per 1,000 gallons of water stood at $1.81, while Reno’s price was a considerable $3.39 (Utah Rivers Council, 2001, 8). The disparity in water rates between Utah municipalities and comparable communities throughout the American West has only grown since then. For 15,000 gallons used, Tucson currently charges $10.20, Seattle $8.49, Denver $5.36, Phoenix $5.54, and Las Vegas $3.45 (Utah Rivers Council, 2014, 6). West Jordan and St. George charge $1.25 and $1.14, respectively (Utah Rivers Council, 2014, 6). Utah’s water rates are significantly lower than the rest of the nation in general and the West specifically.

Additionally, these statistics don’t account for differences between Utah municipalities and other western localities in water retail pricing structures. Each non-Utah city cited above has a tiered conservation pricing structure that progressively increases the cost of water as the consumer uses more. For example, Tucson charges little over $2 per 1,000 gallons used up to 7,000 gallons, then increases at regular intervals until peaking at $15.88 at 22,000+ gallons. On the contrary, West Jordan only increases its price of water by $0.24 twice, while St. George claims to have a conservation pricing structure due to their meager increases of $0.08 for every 5,000 gallons used (Utah Rivers Council, 2014, 6).

Thus, not only do Utah communities charge much less than the rest of the American West, they charge in such a way as to encourage as much usage as consumers see fit. Meanwhile, the regional norm is to increase the price of water as more is used.

The result of these pricing policies is wasteful water usage. Consumers purchase water as a basic good, and basic supply and demand economics dictate that the cheaper the price of the good the more demand there is from consumers. As BYU Professor Emeritus Dr. B. Delworth Gardner explains in the book Aquanomics: Water Markets and the Environment, “in a market economy prices signal information to consumers and producers,” and as cost is lowered the customer will demand more water (2012, 226). Utah Rivers Council elaborates: “as with any commodity, low prices encourage consumers to consume more product” (Utah Rivers Council, 2001, 1). Municipal users are more likely to use an increased quantity of water per household for indoor and outdoor purposes, as the price of water is cheaper. “Cheap water prices result in high consumption and are the reason Utahns are among the most wasteful users of water (per person) in the entire U.S.” (Utah Rivers Council, 2014, 3). Therefore, it’s clear that Utah’s incredibly high usage of this precious resource is due considerably to our cheap water rates.

The stated justification for collecting the property tax is no longer valid, as proven by the number of districts throughout the American

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Weston Wood

West that no longer collect it. Water governance evolved similarly throughout the arid region, and special districts were established in multiple states to provide for the growing needs of settler populations.

Included in the financial model of many of these districts was the ability to levy property taxes (Gardner, 2012, 224-6). Water districts in Utah insist, as they have historically, that these taxes are required to bond efficiently for projects, among other financial needs (Gardner 2012, 224-6). However, the Utah Rivers Council found that most water districts don’t collect the property tax while many have the power to do so, and are able to successfully bond for projects when necessary to upgrade or expand infrastructure (2001, 2-4). The revenue provided by ratepayers is large and stable enough to receive a high bond rating, let alone sustain regular operations. While populations may have been too small to support districts with rates in the past, this is empirically proven to no longer be the case.

A variety of sources denounce the property taxes water districts levy due to the role they play in reducing the price of Utah’s water. From conservation groups, to academic economists, to a former Republican governor, these taxes are all said to be chief to blame for the high consumption outlined above, resulting in a variety of ill effects. The levying of property taxes serves to distort the relationship between water supply and demand. Gardner continues, explaining that efficient distribution of water resources occurs at the price point in which supply meets demand (2012, 228). “Using ad valorem property taxes in lieu of direct water-user prices as a revenue-producing mechanism for a water district” results in “the water price…not [being] allowed to rise to the equilibrium price” (Gardner, 2012, 228). They act as virtual subsidies that have no correlation to the amount of water consumed, which means the consumer pays the same amount of taxes regardless of how much water they consume (Gardner, 2012, 228-9). Without the purchase price reflecting the full cost of delivering water, demand exceeds the supply that would result in the most efficient usage. “Although most Utahns embrace free market principles, property taxes for water, or water taxes, discourage the efficient use of water. This is the cornerstone of market economics: cheap prices drive high consumption” (Utah Rivers Council, 2014). This irony results in Utah’s uniquely wasteful usage as outlined above.

From Governor Leavitt’s statements in the ‘90s to the present there is a consensus that the property tax both facilitates waste and leads to a myriad of detrimental effects. In 2012, 13 professors of economics addressed a letter to both houses of the Utah State Legislature on the issue. First, they reiterated the argument above: “Property tax subsidies for water in urban areas fuels unnecessary indebtedness and wasteful government spending…by lowering the retail price of water, these distortionary subsidies send a signal to consumers to use more water” (Reynolds et al., 2012, 1), while alternatively “in basic free market economics [this] commodity [would get] supplied only to the extent that its users paid for it” (Reynolds et al., 2012,1). The Utah Rivers Council extrapolated on this argument in 2001, explaining, “property taxes lower the retail price of water since part of the delivery cost is hidden in property, sales, and income taxes,” which actively discourages consumers from saving water (2). Allowing water districts to levy property taxes permits them to artificially lower Utah’s water prices, which results in our high rates of consumption due to supply and demand.

The property taxes themselves are the third component of Utah’s wasteful water regime.

In their letter, the economists extrapolated on the property tax’s

The Hinckley Journal of Politics

harmful impacts. They claim explicitly these property taxes lead to water waste. “By subsidizing the price of water, people overuse, or ‘waste,’ water” (Reynolds et al., 2012, 2). In 2012, 51% of Washington County Water Conservancy District’s (WCD) revenue was property tax, and residents of St. George used over 900 gallons every single day of July, paying the subsidized rate of $1.11 (Reynolds et al., 2012, 2). They then remind the reader that this contrasts sharply with the higher rates and lower consumption throughout the West (Reynolds et al., 2012, 2). This waste disproportionately affects certain Utah populations in turn. In another fiscally conservative irony, private home and business owners end up paying for public water waste. “The property taxes paid by homeowners and businesses subsidize large lot landowners to use water…which pay no property taxes and therefore pay far less than the full cost of their water use” (Reynolds et al., 2012, 2). These policies force working class Utahns to pay for the water use of wealthy individuals and institutions.

“Since roughly 70% of Utah’s urban water use occurs outside the home during summer months…lower income residents use much less water (per capita) than richer residents” because they tend to live in smaller homes in which spending on outdoor water is not a financial priority (Reynolds et al., 2012, 2). Since the property tax rate is the same regardless of water use, this means those with less means subsidize the high water use of the Utah residents and institutions that can afford it (Utah Rivers Council, 2014, 7). Taxpayer money is not used fairly, the most economically, or in the best interest of the people of Utah.

This property tax subsidy of water wastes financial resources as well as water. Of particular relevance to this study is the tax’s role in promoting large capital projects and public indebtedness. After reducing the retail price of water and therefore increasing water use, the property tax results in massive water development to continue to fuel it. “This high water use is often the justification for expensive capital projects, such as the proposed Lake Powell Pipeline” (Reynolds et al., 2012,1). The proposal of this pipeline directly implicates St. George’s high water use.

“Demand projections that are used to justify capital expenditures are based on this waste” (Utah Rivers Council, 2001, 3). This means that the taxpayer monies being collected for water use are being wasted as well, and leads to the state incurring more debt for Utah residents to pay off. The economists cited above pointed out “Utah is at or near its constitutionally-mandated ceiling of indebtedness” and issuing more debt is distinctly fiscally irresponsible (Reynolds et al., 2012,1). The need for more large water projects, as argued by the state government and water districts, is the result of their tax collecting. It enables even more inefficiency as it provides more water to be wasted rather than distributing the cost directly to the consumer.

The property tax also prevents viable alternative sources of water from being developed. Alternative sources aren’t competitive because they cost more than the subsidized price of water will support.

Surplus agricultural water, water reuse, secondary water, gray water, reclaimed water, and other water sources are frequently used in communities outside Utah…[but] have not been implemented in the Salt Lake Valley because the price of these sources is greater than subsidized water rates. (Utah Rivers Council, 2001, 4) Dr. Gardner agrees, explaining that a consequence of removing the tax would be “these water consumers will support politically only the construction of projects that are economically feasible—where expected project benefits are at least equal to project costs” (2012, 229). While without the property tax, water demand would be lower and conserva-

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tive expansion of the supply could be paid for as needed, the higher demand and lack of funds for expansion gives the districts the tools they need to ask for state spending on large water projects.

This begs the question why, when so ineffectual economically and environmentally, is this policy still in place? The recipients of this tax money, the water districts and the developers they work with, are politically entrenched. They actively use a portion of this money to lobby for keeping the property tax in place and to acquire funding for the capital projects it supports. Utah Rivers Council points to “virtually all the opposition to phasing out property taxes for water comes almost entirely from those water agencies who receive” them, and that “it’s not uncommon for revenues to be used for marketing campaigns and lobbying contracts” (2014, 1-2). Gardner agrees once more: The fundamental water problem in Utah (and other Western states) is not that existing supplies will prove to be inadequate to meet increasing future demands. This is a fallacy artificially induced by failing to regard water as an economic good like most other goods.

The basic problem is that pricing policy has been infected and distorted by political favors in the form of subsidies and concessions to differ ent interest groups. Using property taxes as a revenue substitute for direct water prices is one such example. So many water “problems” could be solved if this commodity were priced at the level required to cover supply costs and equate supply and demand. (2012, 245) The chief water problem to be interrogated here is the connection to big spending on destructive water projects while more ecologically and economically minded options are ignored.

The Lake Powell Pipeline is an important example of the process discussed above. Washington County WCD is one of the chief proponents and would-be recipients of its water, and has some of the highest use in our high-use state. As discussed above, in 2012 over half of their revenue was property taxes while their water prices were exceptionally low and consumption rates were above the state average at 295 gpcd (Blattenberger et al., 4). “The government water supplier proposing the Lake Powell Pipeline project receives as much money collecting water taxes as they do from selling water, according to their audited financial statement” (Utah Rivers Council, 2014, 3). Because of the increased water consumption that results from artificially reduced rates, “phasing out these taxes would delay the need for this project for at least 20 years, but this government agency is adamantly opposed to even studying phasing out the water tax” (Utah Rivers Council, 2014, 3). The government has not seriously considered phasing out the property taxes. Additionally, the Lake Powell Pipeline results in a radical increase of indebtedness. In an October 2015 study, 21 academic economists argued the project would result in anywhere from $1.33 to $1.75 billion in construction costs to be repaid by the recipient water districts (Blattenberger et al., 2015, 6).

This doesn’t include interest payments from $52 to $258 million annually at interest rates from 0.03% to 0.07% (Blattenberger et al., 2015, 6).

The project would require significant increases in property taxes, water rates, and impact fees in order to repay this debt, which the economists argue will be highly unlikely to accomplish (Blattenberger et al., 2015, 11-12). In facilitating the high consumption rates that are used to justify this project, the property taxes result in the incurring of unsustainable debt that falls on the taxpayer to repay.

While the proposed Lake Powell Pipeline has received increased prominence in public discourse, the role of property taxes is strikingly absent from the discussion. An opinion piece by the Salt Lake Tribune

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PROPERTY TAXES & WATER DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS: A FEEDBACK LOOP IN UTAH WATER POLICY

Editorial Board argues that the debt is crippling but did not raise awareness on how property taxes would bring it about (2015, O1). A similar article in the Deseret News failed to mention the same (O’Donoghue, 2015). Thus, it is imperative to investigate the current proportion of water district revenue currently generated from property taxes, particularly in Washington County WCD. This study provides data that can both link the property tax to higher water consumption and the development it justifies and suggest how much water their removal can save.

Method I collected data from the financial statements of the 23 WCDs and three Metropolitan Water Districts (MWD) of the State of Utah from 2011 to 2015 where available and the corresponding records from the Utah State Tax Commission. These are the largest and most predominant forms of water districts in this state, which warrants attention. I gathered water sales revenues, property tax revenues, and impact fee revenues for each district each year, as these categories are the most significant forms of water district revenue as determined by a survey of the institutions. I also collected change in net revenues/position, the current year debt obligation, and total outstanding debt. I then calculated total revenue for each data set. Then, I gathered the property tax rates for each district from the Utah State Tax Commission. All of the data has been compiled into tables by year that can be seen below as Appendix A for WCDs and Appendix B for MWDs. Results The data gathered reveals that property taxes continued to be a significant source of revenue for WCDs and MWDs from 2011 to 2015.

2014 was the most recent year with data for the former. Figures 1 and 2 show the average percentage and total amount respectively:

Weston Wood

On average, WCDs collected $4,101,904 in water sales, $3,976,859 in property taxes, and $474,383 in impact fees, which is approximately 48%, 46%, and 6% of total revenues generated. In total, they collected $91,467,756, $94,343,799, and $10,910,802 respectively for a total of $196,722,357 in revenue. This means that property taxes remain almost half of all WCD revenue.

Property taxes are an even more significant revenue source among Utah’s three MWDs. Orem MWD has not collected water sales revenue in the past five years, meaning property taxes and impact fees are their only sources. Lehi MWD hasn’t collected water sales revenue since 2012. Salt Lake and Sandy MWD has generated much more revenue over the last five years.

In 2015, they collected $15,541,662 in water sales, $11,094,956 in property taxes, and no impact fees, for a total of $26,636,616. This means 42% was property taxes. While slightly lower than WCDs, property taxes were 40% of all revenue generated by these three MWDs in 2014.

Property taxes have remained a considerable source of revenue for Utah water districts over the past five years. Figure 4 shows the percentages of total revenue for WCDs and MWDs.

While the percentage has decreased for WCDs slightly, the effect is negligible as the property tax continues to be almost half of all revenue.

Additionally, the average tax levy rate by WCDs has increased from 0.0002706 in 2011 to 0.0003013 in 2014. For MWDs, the percentage increases once more after dipping slightly. There is no indication the districts will gradually collect less.

As the Washington County WCD is the chief proponent and recipient of the Lake Powell Pipeline, it’s crucial to analyze their current revenues and trends. Figure 5, on the following page, demonstrates their revenues in 2014.

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The Hinckley Journal of Politics

O’Donoghue, A. (2015, December 5). Will pipeline weigh down your wallet or buoy your future? Deseret News. Retrieved from www.deseretnews.com Tribune Editorial Board. (2015, November 29) Drowning in Debt. The Salt Lake Tribune. P. O1.

Utah Rivers Council. (2001). Mirage in the Desert: Property Tax Subsidies for Water. Salt Lake City, UT: Author. Pp 1-4.

Utah Rivers Council. (2014). Who Pays for Waste? Salt Lake City, UT: Author.

Pp. 1-8

Washington County WCD collected more revenue from property taxes than any other source in 2014 once more. This has remained consistently between $9 and $11 million over the past five years, and verifies the sources cited above.

Conclusion This year’s legislative audit of the Division of Water Resources confirmed Governor Leavitt’s sentiment from two decades ago: that Utah has plenty of water to prepare for future growth as long as it is responsibly used (Coleman et al, 2015, i-iv). Continuing to constitute almost half of Utah water district revenues, the property tax is a roadblock to the conservation ethic he argued for. Property tax revenue artificially lowers the price of water, facilitating Utah’s notably high consumption rates that are then used to project a need for large water projects that can only be paid for by public debt. Sustainability is fiscal as well as ecological. This property tax promotes waste of both the water we need to drink and money we need to pay for it. As long as the Washington County WCD, and those water districts like it, collects more revenue from property taxes than any other source, destructive and fiscally irresponsible projects such as the Lake Powell Pipeline will continue to be proposed. There is an obvious disconnect between the best interests of the taxpaying Utah water consumer and dominant agendas on Utah’s Capitol Hill. Utah must phase out the property tax if we are to preserve our invaluable natural surroundings and live within our means.

References Bernick, B. (1995, May 9). LEAVITT SAYS FEES, NOT PROPERTY TAX, ARE WAY TO FUND NEW WATER PROJECTS. Deseret News. Retrieved from www.deseretnews.com Blattenberger, G. Lozada, G. Jameson, K. Malony, T. Kaplan, A. Girton, L. . . .

Sjober, E. (2015, October 26). Lake Powell Pipeline Economic Feasibility Analysis for Washington County, UT. Salt Lake City: Author. Pp 4-12.

Coleman, R. Behunin, J. Cabulagan, Parrish, A. (2015). A Performance Audit of Projections of Utah’s Water Needs. Salt Lake City, UT: Office of the Legislative Auditor General, State of Utah. Pp. i-7.

Gardner, B. (2012). The Economic Effects of Using Property Taxes in Lieu of Direct User Fees to Pay for Water. Aquanomics: Water Markets and the Environment. Oakland, CA: The Independent Institute. Pp. 225-46 Reynolds, S. Jameson, K. Lozada, G. Bilingsoy, C. Maloney, T. N. Ehrbar, H. . . . Yeagle, A. argue against the property tax levied by water districts (professional communication, S eptember 18, 2012). Pp. 1-3

5

Homelessness: A Rights-based Perspective

By Alexander F. Mayer University of Utah

Social policy on homelessness varies with the understanding of the causes of homelessness, which range from individual choice to systemic failure. During periods of social catastrophe, such as the Great Depression, homelessness was more likely to be regarded and addressed as a systemic problem. President Franklin Roosevelt even went as far as advocating for housing as a right in his State of the Union address in 1944. However, the relative prosperity that followed WWII minimized the importance of housing as a right and homelessness as an issue. This lack of attention was maintained until the mid-1980s, which saw a spike in homelessness and once again advanced the notion of homelessness as a systemic problem. Finding appropriate solutions depends on whether one understands shelter as a human right or as a resource that must be earned. This article examines two highly touted solutions: one offered in the U.S. by Salt Lake County and one created in Scotland. While the policy developed in Salt Lake is progressive relative to policy enforced in other urban centers, aiming to build new housing and willing to accommodate clients despite problems with addiction, it falls short in organizing community support, and it fails to define homelessness in an inclusive way. Scotland’s policies are more inclusive and more progressive, defining housing as a right and thereby removing the moral means testing of the homeless. This article argues that U.S. policy regarding homelessness should heed the example set in Scotland and move towards adopting a right-based approach to addressing homelessness.

Keywords: homeless, housing, Salt Lake City, Scotland, rights

Introduction There is perhaps no greater despair for an individual than not having a place to call home. The lack of security that accompanies homelessness makes little more than basic survival possible for nearly one million individuals and families who are homeless on any given night in the United States (NAEH, 2000). We encounter these individuals and families on a daily basis. I cannot remember a time or a place in which homelessness was not a feature of the community in which I lived. Some of my earliest childhood experiences were asking my mother if I could give a dollar to the desperate people whom we encountered almost every day. Although I took satisfaction in doing our part, I knew, even as a child, that a single dollar was not a solution, and was left wondering what was. There are those who might say that there is no solution, that homelessness is the result of individuals’ personal choices, that so long as there is laziness there will be homelessness, and that the best we can do as a society is to contain the miscreants in various institutions. I find this to be an incomplete description of the problem and more a sign of apathy than a desire to find a real solution. In reality, homelessness is a symptom of an economic system that favors profit over justice. To ensure any systemic semblance of justice, legal safeguards must be put in place that guarantee a right to housing. The real solution to homelessness is to give the homeless homes.

A Brief History of U.S. Policy on Homelessness and Poverty While homelessness in the U.S. is as old as the country itself, the mass homelessness seen today is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Various strategies and perspectives have been employed to combat

homelessness overtime; unfortunately, most have been unsuccessful, as the ever-increasing homeless population testifies.

Formal policy on how to ameliorate the living conditions for the poorest of the poor in the U.S. has historically run parallel to the societal views of the poor at the time (NASW, 2011). In the early 20th century, with an increasing number of immigrants coming from poorer countries, being poor was largely seen as a deficit in the individual or as a deficit in their cultural or national background. Efforts to help these populations were left to various charity organizations who determined eligibility for their services by categorizing the poor into two groups: the “worthy” poor (orphans, widows, the handicapped, elderly, etc.) and the “unworthy” poor (drunks, addicts, the unemployed, etc.), a distinction that is still maintained today (Hansan, 2011).

However, the widespread poverty that ensued in the wake of the Great Depression was impossible to explain or view as a function of individual causation. It was clear that the dysfunction existed on a systemic level and policy “focused on structural causes rather than the personal deficits of poor people” (NASW, 2011, p.179). These policies focused mainly on providing services to the newly poor, families who had been thrust into abject poverty as a direct result of the Depression, and were maintained until WWII (NASW, 2011).

The impending victory in WWII brought new hopes for Americans both rich and poor alike. In his State of the Union address in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a “second Bill of Rights” among which is “the right of every family to a decent home” (FDR, 1944, para. 6). However, ensuing legislation regarding housing, namely the Housing Act of 1949, fell well short of providing this right, diminishing it to a goal to be accomplished as soon as it was feasible (Tars & Egleson, 2009). Services for those without a home were left to organizations like the Salvation Army, which only provided emergency

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HOMELESSNESS: A RIGHTS-BASED PERSPECTIVE

shelter (NASW, 2011).

President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society legislation helped define the 1960s and ‘70s. This legislation, along with the War on Poverty, provided economic opportunities for poor people through federally funded welfare programs (NASW, 2011). Unfortunately, these programs did not address deficits in low-income housing or provide enough economic stimulus to raise individuals out of extreme poverty. Homelessness was not seen as a large enough problem at the time to provoke the policy changes necessary to address it.

However, by the mid-1980s, the issue of homelessness was undeniable. Conservative policies defunding mental institutions, rising housing costs, and inadequate care for veterans who had returned from Vietnam produced a sharp increase in the homeless population (NASW, 2011).

For the first time, substantial homeless encampments in public spaces were visible to the public at large, sparking a national debate about the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to homelessness. Media coverage and conservative policies relapsed back to the pre-Depression views of individual causation and the “worthy” and “unworthy” poor (NASW, 2011). The Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 reflected this and only provided relief for those in need of emergency shelter, especially those with a disability or mental illness (NASW, 2011), leaving the rest to pull themselves up by their bootstraps (provided that they had them).

Shelter accommodations increased two-fold between 1988 and 1996 in an attempt to meet an ever-rising demand, pointing to the utter failure of the policies of the decade (NASW, 2011).

The 1990s offered no respite to the procession of ill-conceived policies regarding poverty and homelessness. The final blow to any semblance of responsible policy was struck in 1996 when President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which “ended welfare as we know it” (NASW, 2011, p. 181). This Act eliminated the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, replaced it with the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, and slashed the budget of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by nearly three quarters (NASW, 2011).

While the policies of the 1980s and ‘90s were undoubtedly disastrous, leaving approximately 3.5 million Americans homeless and hopeless (NAEH, 2000), they have provided a guide for precisely what not to do. In the last decade over 200 local governments have put together 10 year plans to end chronic homelessness (UHCDD, 2014). The efficacy of these plans has varied, but as a whole, they represent a step in the right direction and will be discussed further in the following section.

The shifting policies regarding homelessness over the past century and their ineffectiveness suggest two conclusions. First, homelessness is a systemic issue: there are no “worthy” and “unworthy” homeless; there are only the desperate and extremely desperate, both of whom have the right to a home. Second, while some see homelessness as a complex issue, homelessness is fundamentally a function of two variables: housing and poverty. Policies that fail to address these points are not only ineffective, but potentially damaging to the communities they serve. A new approach is needed, one which hearkens back to FDR’s mandate for a housing as a right. The most responsible and effective policy to end homelessness in the U.S. is to provide every man, woman, and child with the legal right to a secure home.

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Alexander Mayer

Discussion In the year 2000, the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) published a policy guideline entitled A Plan, Not a Dream: How to End Homelessness in Ten Years. Since that time, a number of state, county, and local governments have drafted plans of their own, using the NAEH plan as their template. Of these plans, none has received more media coverage or claimed more success than Salt Lake County’s, which is where the vast majority of Utah’s homeless reside (SLCCG, 2006).

Before delving into Salt Lake County’s plan regarding the homeless, it is important to define what being homeless means. The current legal definition of the term “homeless” as defined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is as follows: 1. an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate night

time residence; 2. an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is —

a. a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter

designed to provide temporary living accommodations

(including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transi

tional housing for the mentally ill);

b. an institution that provides a temporary residence for

individuals intended to be institutionalized; or

c. a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily

used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human

beings. (Tars & Egleson, 2009, p. 207) It is important to note that the “and” between sections 1 and 2 is read restrictively, meaning that both conditions must be present for an individual to be considered homeless (Tars & Egleson, 2009).

By interpreting the law in such a way, this definition allows for only those in shelters, halfway houses, or sleeping in public spaces to receive relief services.

In addition to using the HUD definition of homelessness provided above, the Salt Lake County plan, entitled New Vision, New Opportunities: Ten-year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, defines chronic homelessness as “those unaccompanied persons who have been homeless and are either on the street for at least one year or, those with a disabling condition who have experienced at least four episodes of homelessness within the last three years” (SLCCG, 2006, p. 1). Using this definition, the county identified 566 individuals, out of 2,738 total homeless, who were chronically homeless (SLCCG, 2006). These individuals represent the target population eligible for services under the plan. The plan’s goal was to eliminate chronic homelessness in Salt Lake County, which, aside from the obvious humanitarian benefits, would provide large savings to the county, as the chronic homeless, who at the time of the plan’s implementation represented 20% of the homeless population, used over 50% of the resources (SLCCG, 2006).

The primary service provided by the plan is housing. Over ten years, 600 new units of housing would be built to house the chronically homeless (SLCCG, 2006). Using the “Housing First” approach, which forgoes requirements such as sobriety, individuals would qualify for services so long as they fit the definition of chronically homeless. Once housed, the government connects individuals to existing support services, such as TANF, that would provide rent assistance and medical and mental health services, including substance abuse

The Hinckley Journal of Politics

treatment (SLCCG, 2006).

Outcomes of the plan have been favorable inasmuch as they have been effective in reducing the number of chronically homeless by 72%, providing a net savings of more than $4 million (UHCDD, 2014). However, the exclusivity of the HUD definition of homeless and Salt Lake County’s definition of “chronically homeless” begs the question: what about the rest of them? Indeed, an estimated 14,000 homeless persons annually in Utah do not qualify for housing simply because they have not been homeless long enough (Smart, 2016). In addition, the Salt Lake County plan makes no provisions for plans to lift these individuals out of poverty other than providing access to TANF, a service policy whose inefficacy is partly responsible for the homeless crisis in the first place.

While there is certainly nothing wrong with setting realistic goals to serve the most desperate in the homeless population, as is the case with the Salt Lake County plan, those goals should not represent an end in themselves but instead be a stepping-stone toward a greater goal: ending homelessness entirely. Such an approach does exist in Scotland where the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act of 2003 outlines what might be the closest thing to ensuring a right to housing in the world (Tars & Egleson, 2009).

Similarly to the U.S., Scotland experienced a large increase in the homeless population in the late 1980s and throughout the '90s (Tars & Egleson, 2009). In 1999, the Homeless Task Force (HTF) was created to assess and deliver recommendations on the state of homelessness throughout the region (Tars & Egleson, 2009). The HTF, from the beginning, operated from the perspective that “housing is a right and should be available to all” (Tars & Egleson, 2009, p 192). With this as their foundation, the HTF developed a comprehensive model to end homelessness, which includes: (1) an inclusive definition of homelessness, (2) specific planning requirements, (3) justiciability, (4) eviction and foreclosure protections, and (5) a mortgage-to-rent scheme to prevent homelessness (Tars & Egleson, 2009).

The most progressive aspect of the Scottish model, and why it has been effective, lies in its inclusive definition of homelessness. Those who might be considered homeless and eligible for housing, include not only what the Scottish model calls the “priority need” group (the disabled, the elderly, the mentally ill, those with dependent children, and those that have been displaced by natural disaster), but also those whose accommodations are unreasonable (overcrowded) or dangerous (domestic violence), and even those who are in imminent danger of losing their accommodations due to foreclosure (Tars & Egleson, 2009).

Upon implementation, those in the priority need group received additional benefits, such as the right to sue local housing authorities if denied housing (justiciability); however, the Scottish model eliminated this distinction in 2012, and today these benefits extend to all Scottish subjects (Tars & Egleson, 2009).

This last aspect of the Scottish model cannot be overstated. Local housing agencies have the affirmative duty to provide housing to the homeless, and those homeless who are denied housing when eligible have the right to sue their local government for the issuance of said housing (Tars & Egleson, 2009). According to Tars & Egleson (2009), this is not a common occurrence but is nevertheless the hallmark of the Scottish model and what makes it a rights-based approach. Scottish subjects have just as much a right to housing as U.S. citizens have the right to free speech.

In addition to having the right to housing, the Scottish model affords its subjects, as a preventative measure, the right not to lose their home. Those who are in imminent danger of homelessness, or might become homeless in the future, are given protections under a mortgageto-rent scheme and foreclosure and eviction protections (Tars & Egleson, 2009). If a tenant is in danger of becoming evicted, the landlord is required to provide local authorities with the eviction notice so that the courts can determine the extent to which a third party might be

2017

involved or the extent to which the renter might qualify for assistance to avoid eviction (Tars & Egleson, 2009). In the case of imminent foreclosure, the Scottish model provides for Registered Social Landlords (RSL) who purchase the property from the lender and rent it back to the tenants (Tars & Egleson, 2009). While this does result in loss of ownership, it does not result in the loss of their home.

Positive outcomes of the Scottish model have been profound and extensive. Upon implementation of the Act, hundreds of thousands of applications for housing poured in, which attests to both the high demand for housing and the inclusiveness of the homeless definition (Tars & Egleson, 2009). Since that time, application numbers have leveled out, and the number of applicants who were on the street before applying has dropped to 6%, indicating that individuals’ housing needs are being met well before such critical points (Tars & Egleson, 2009). £1.2 billion has been earmarked for the expansion of affordable housing, signaling that the Scottish Executive (government) has literally bought into the rights-based approach to prevent homelessness in the future (Tars & Egleson, 2009).

As bright as the results have been for the Scottish policy on homelessness, they have not come without difficulties. Long waiting lists are common as housing supply tries to keep up with high demand, and some applicants travel as far as 200 miles to receive services (Tars & Egleson, 2009). In addition to some of the logistical obstacles and red tape hindering the Scottish model, there has been “a delay in changing the mentality of some government officials to a truly inclusive approach” (Tars & Egleson, 2009, p 203). Resistance from these officials has resulted in some communities providing better services than others (Tars & Egleson, 2009), which undermines the spirit of a rights-based approach that proclaims that no matter where one is from or who they are, they will be afforded housing.

Counterclaims There are two main obstacles in establishing a rights-based housing system for the homeless in the U.S. The first is that this type of system would most likely be politicized as socialism, and therefore seen as antiAmerican. The second obstacle would likely take the form of a “Not in My Back Yard” (NIMBY) movement, in which fears from the local community about housing the homeless in their neighborhoods would create resistance to housing legislation (Wynne-Edwards, 2003).

In order to tackle the first point, it must be pointed out that capitalism is precisely the reason that a rights-based housing system must exist. As it stands, one has to earn the right to have a home, which is no right at all. If the Scottish system had been in place in the U.S. during the 2008 housing crisis, many would have not lost their homes through the mortgage-to-rent provision in the plan, and those who did lose their home would instantly qualify for housing under the broad definition of homelessness (Tars & Egleson, 2009). Effectively, instead of bailing out the banks, taxpayers would have bailed out themselves and their neighbors.

Note that although Scotland has a capitalist economy, and is relatively politically conservative, Scottish subjects still have the right to choose what type of home they want to live in, and Scotland itself has not descended into totalitarian communism as a result of providing housing as a right.

The second obstacle, opposition from NIMBY movements, arises when residents take exception to unwanted facilities or structures that are proposed in their neighborhoods. According to Wynne-Edwards (2003) in her policy proposal entitled Overcoming Community Opposition to Homelessness Sheltering Projects Under the National Homelessness Initiative, the three most frequent concerns for housing homeless in or

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HOMELESSNESS: A RIGHTS-BASED PERSPECTIVE

near communities are that it will lower property values, that it will increase traffic and crime, and that it is an unfair distribution of resources. Wynne-Edward’s (2003) proposal suggests that most of these fears are unfounded and that housing project organizers might placate these fears simply by educating residents about prospective outcomes. Having an open dialogue with community members and including them in the process is essential to successfully integrating the homeless into these communities. Local governments must explain to residents that housing the homeless in or close to their community is preferable to having homeless individuals roaming the streets (Wynne-Edwards, 2003). Additionally, they must convince community members that providing the homeless with secure resources, such as a home, would reduce the “need” to commit crimes, and therefore make their communities safer (Wynne-Edwards, 2003). Lastly, they must invite residents to planning sessions and demonstrate that housing the homeless long-term actually reduces the amount of resources used, leaving more resources to address other issues (Wynne-Edwards, 2003).

NIMBY opposition has played a key role in preventing the expansion of shelter services in Salt Lake City recently. In an effort to decentralize the resources available to the homeless population, the City and County of Salt Lake unveiled a plan to build four new resource centers in place of the existing shelter facility whose location had become an open-air drug market (Piper, 2017). The idea was to spread out the shelter locations, thereby eliminating the drug market around the existing location. The problem is that city and county leaders did not involve community members in the site selection process, so that when the sites were unveiled, community members were appalled to discover that they would soon be hosting a homeless shelter (Piper, 2017). Fierce opposition erupted in the community over the location and the price of two of the four sites (one of the sites was in an affluent community and carried a price tag larger than the other three sites combined), leading to heated town hall debates and eventually forcing the plan to move forward without these sites.

This example exposes a number of flaws in the Salt Lake City plan to end homelessness. First, the city seems more concerned with appearance and profit than with actually helping people. The reasoning behind de-centralizing the homeless resource centers was not to reach more of the target population (which would be reasonable), but rather to defuse the burden from one community to four others, to free up prime downtown real-estate. The locations were almost arbitrary to the planners, so long as they were not the current location, which is why local communities so easily defeated the plan. Second, had the city had planning requirements such as the inclusion of local communities in the site selection process, they could have avoided the appearance of acting unilaterally. The main contention of the communities that resisted the proposed sites was not necessarily that they would be hosting a homeless shelter, but rather that they had no say in the matter.

As one concerned resident notes: "We are very disappointed and feel it was derelict of the city to make this announcement without contacting us and blindsiding our business and our families” (Smart & Wood, 2016, para. 14). Lastly, because there is no legal mandate to provide the homeless with shelters, the city had no incentive to go through with the project despite the communities’ objections. The homeless are members of these communities as well but lack the social capital to advocate effectively for their needs. Legal guidelines must hold the government accountable to ensure that reasonable effort is being put

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forth on behalf of the homeless.

Conclusion Although they are not often thought of as such, the homeless are members of our communities, worthy of the kindness and compassion we would give to our neighbor. Some might have us believe that the homeless are pariahs or parasites, but how many unfortunate events are most of us from experiencing homelessness ourselves? The death of our primary wage earner? Two costly hospital bills? A car accident?

I experienced one such unfortunate event, mental illness, four years ago that rendered me homeless. I spent most of 2013 couch surfing and living out of my car, but eventually I slept on the street. Too ashamed to beg for money, I collected recyclables every day to earn enough money ($20/day) to survive. Fortunately, my family had the resources to provide me with treatment for my illness. When I arrived at the treatment center I was grateful to simply have a roof over my head and a warm bed to sleep in that putting in the work to overcome my mental illness seemed like a bargain. To know there was a safe place for me to work on myself where others accepted me at my sickest was very powerful and instrumental in my recovery. Very few in the homeless population have the resources available to afford the accommodations that aided in my recovery; however, that does not mean that they are unworthy of them nor that they should be denied them. Taking a rights-based approach to housing means recognizing this inequity, and legislation like the Scottish model begins to address it.

While the Scottish model is not without its difficulties, there are many aspects of the model that the U.S. would be wise to consider when drafting future policy on homelessness. These include embracing a more inclusive definition of homelessness, making it the affirmative duty of local governments to house their residents, and shifting to a rights-based approach to housing. While fully embracing a rights-based approach might seem far-fetched for the U.S., adopting a more comprehensive definition of what it means to be homeless certainly is not.

A homeless person is not just “an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence” (Tars & Egleson, 2009, p. 207), because a home is not simply a roof over one’s head. A home is a place where people feel safe; a place where at the end of the day people retire to, not just to sleep, but to center themselves, removed from the tragedies of the world; it is a place so intertwined with a person’s identity that they can be a thousand miles away, never having left it.

Surely to deny any individual any of these things for any reason would be inhumane. That is why it is a human right, and that is why, until declared flatly, that every man, woman, and child need not worry about having a place to call home, the problem of homelessness will continue.

References Hansan, J.E. (2011). Poor relief in early America. Retrieved from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/poor-relief-early-amer/ National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH). (2000). A plan: Not a dream how to end homelessness in ten years. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://www.endhomelessness.org/page/-/files/585_file_TYP_pdf.pdf National Association of Social Workers (NASW). (2011). Homelessness. Social work speaks: National Association of Social Workers policy statements, 2009-2012(8thed.). Washington, DC: NASW press. Retrieved from

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2017

http://www.socialworkers.org/pressroom/swmonth/2012/toolkit/standards/Homelessness.PDF Piper, M. (2017 February, 24). Homeless plan reset: Agreement now calls for two Salt Lake City shelters, one in S.L. County. Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.sltrib.com/home/4979717-155/live-state-leaders-discussprogress-of Roosevelt, D. F. (1944). The economic bill of rights. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/politics/fdr.pdf Salt Lake County Council of Governments (SLCCG). (2006). New vision new opportunities Salt Lake County’s ten year plan to end chronic homelessness. Salt Lake City, UT. Retrieved from http://slco.org/crd/pdf/TenYearPlanToEndChro.pdf Smart, C. (2015 May, 10). Wrangling continues over what to do with Utah’s other 14,000 homeless. Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved from http://www. sltrib.com/news/2488202-155/wrangling-continues-over-what-todo?fullpage=1 Smart, C., & Wood, B. (2016 December, 13). Salt Lake City leaders say decision on homeless shelter sites set in concrete. Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved from: http://www.sltrib.com/home/4654207-155/salt-lake-city-selectsfour-sites Tars, S. E., & Egleson, C. (2009). Great Scot!: The Scottish plan to end homelessness and lessons for the housing rights movement in the United States.

Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, 16(1), 187-216. Retrieved from https://www.nlchp.org/documents/Great_Scot.

Utah Housing and Community Development Division (UHCDD). (2014).

Comprehensive report on homelessness. Salt Lake City, UT. Retrieved from https://jobs.utah.gov/housing/scso/documents/homelessness2014. pdf Wynne-Edwards, J. (2003). Overcoming community opposition to homelessness sheltering projects under the National Homelessness Initiative. National Secretariat on Homelessness. Gatineau, Quebec. Retrieved from http:// www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/elibrary/NHINIMBY.pdf

11

The Irrational Fear of Terrorism Regarding Migrants from Conflict Zones: Analysis of the Syrian Civil War

By Anthony Calacino University of Utah

Do migrants, asylum seekers, and (or) refugees from conflict zones pose an increased risk of terrorism to resettlement or migration states? In its sixth year, the Syrian Civil War has created one of the most pressing refugee crises in a quartercentury. Non-state actors such as the so called Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) have complicated the conflict, as well as the refugee situation. Phenomena like foreign fighters entering Syria and subsequently leaving have added a new dimension of security concerns. Leaders of countries throughout the world use the pretext of the risk of terrorism as a sufficient excuse to obstruct the settlement of refugees. This paper examines the possible link between migrants originating from conflict zones and any risk of terrorism they pose to settlement countries. This paper presents case examples and empirical evidence showing the actual risks of terrorism to neighboring states and resettlements states are low. Terrorism is shown to be less associated with the refugees than often claimed, and country-level determinants are better predictors of the threat of terrorism. Specifically, involvement in armed conflict, state capacities, and state characteristics have a greater effect on overall risk. With regard to the Syrian situation, the experiences of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey are also thoroughly examined.

Keywords: refugees, terrorism, migrants, Syria, civil war, refugee crisis

Introduction In November 2015, over 30 United States governors called for a halt to U.S.-Syrian refugee resettlement (Seipel, 2015). Fear over the threat of terrorism from migrants originating from conflict zones sparked the call for an end to resettlement in the U.S. Lacking any sort of evidence, however, only high-profile isolated cases were used to defend the call for an end to resettlement. Governor Gary Herbert of Utah did not join the call for an end to resettlement and instead claimed the state of Utah would welcome even more refugees in 2016 (Montagne, 2016). However, pressures to ban resettlement have grown with attacks like those at Ohio State University in late November 2016. The attacker injured 11 students by ramming a vehicle into several and stabbing others. It was later discovered he was admitted to the U.S. in June of 2014 as a refugee from Somalia (Smith, Pérez-Peña, & Goldman, 2016).

Attacks like these and the media-hype surrounding them have raised fears regarding migrants and the risk of terrorism both in the state of Utah and nationally.

Several conflicts in the African continent, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and in Central Asia are contributing to large global refugee populations. However, the Syrian Civil War has engendered the newest wave of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants in recent times. The conflict has displaced 50% of the country as 4.5 million have left for neighboring states and beyond (Amnesty International, 2016). Due to numerous failed cease-fire initiations, the conflict remains indefinite. Thus, there is the potential for a continued stream of people to flee the country as the conflict continues. The majority of refugees have settled in immediately neighboring countries, with an overwhelming majority living in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan (United Nations

Higher Commission for Refugees, 2016).

Extant research reveals no consensus regarding the threat of terrorism from conflict zone migrants. Leaders and political pundits in wealthier countries in Europe and North America often claim migrants from conflict zones pose an existential security threat. These fears are often made to mask xenophobia or “Islamophobia.” Yet calls for bans of migrants are gaining support from Britain to France and the U.S. In addition, countries that border Syria have seen various pressures to limit refugee admittance. These pressures are not due to Islamophobia, but rather in response to connected terrorist activities to actors in the conflict zone (or, perceived connections).

However, the risk from terrorist organizations has a relatively small impact on western countries compared to countries in the MENA or Asia (Hegghammer and Nesser 2015). Despite no clear indication that migrants from conflict zones present a threat to resettlement countries, there is a growing trend to obstruct the asylum process for the sake of security.

In addition, the existence of foreign fighters in the Syrian conflict has concerned many involved parties about the impact of these fighters’ travels to and from the conflict zone. One such definition for foreign fighters is “an individual who has gone abroad to train or fight in a terrorist safe haven” (Schmid, 2016). According to Hegghammer, foreign fighters for self- proclaimed Islamic terror groups date back to the 1970s due to the emergence of populist Islamism (Hegghammer 2011, 56). Of less concern to this study is not how foreign fighters have become a phenomenon, but rather how they complicate or affect any risk associated with migration from conflict zones. Of specific concern is when foreign fighters from neighboring countries return to their homes, where individuals may utilize training they have received from

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THE IRRATIONAL FEAR OF TERRORISM REGARDING MIGRANTS FROM CONFLICT ZONES

conflict zones, as well as reinforced ideology, to carry out attacks.

Governments, aid agencies, and international organizations recognize the need for cooperation and sharing of information to report and track possible foreign fighters. Yet refugee streams are capable of making observation of foreign fighters more difficult. Part of this study will set out to explore the risk of terrorism by refugees through examining the complex reality of foreign fighters.

This study is divided into several sections: a literature review that will present several key definitions as well as investigate the past studies on this topic; a section devoted to building a new theory that decouples migration and terrorism causation; a section devoted to the results of empirical observations and process tracing; and finally a section devoted to discussing the results and providing recommendations for future action by countries and interested parties.

Literature Review I present several contentious definitions before proceeding with the literature review. The literature spans several disciplines in addition to more orthodox political science. In addition, my study uses scholarship from sociology and psychology. Due to the equivocal nature of certain terms employed throughout this paper, I wish to define the following: asylum seeker, refugee, migrant, and terrorism. The former three terms are often used interchangeably and in general used to describe people moving from one country to another. The terms diverge in a legal context. A migrant is an individual who migrates from one country to another for more than one year, a refugee is an individual that has left her home state due to conflict or persecution and is legally considered in need of protection, and an asylum seeker is an individual awaiting legal categorization as a refugee (Travis, 2015). All three of these terms are often used to describe similar individuals, wherein the main differences come from domestic and international legal considerations. The term “terrorism” is perhaps the most contentious. One such definition posits terrorism as “the threatened or actual use of illegal force directed against civilian targets by non-state actors in order to attain a political goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation” (LaFree & Dugan, 2007). This definition ignores state actors who commit acts of violence that many would classify as illegal from an international legal perspective. However, the overall definition is useful with a simple alteration whereby the potential agents of terrorism include non-state actors, individuals, and states.

I begin the main literature review by exploring how scholars examine terrorism. The literature considers terrorism simply as a crime, or more precisely a “dishonest crime,” as the individuals or groups that perpetrate such a crime see it as a morally guided action (Hallett, 2004).

Hallett also notes two important differences between traditional crime and terrorism: “first, with few exceptions, terrorists’ crimes are much more spectacular than ordinary crimes of the same type. Second, terrorists say that their crimes are not motivated by any self-interests but, rather, are committed solely in the interests of others, the oppressed” (2004). The “spectacular” aspect of terrorism seems to be the primary objective rather than to harm or kill individuals in a society.

Other scholarship focuses on the origins of terrorism. Despite common belief that ideology inspires terrorism, one central finding in the literature is that terrorism and radical ideology can be independent. In other words, terrorists can be radicals, just as radicals can be

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Anthony Calacino

terrorists; however, an individual being one of these things does not guarantee the other (Mandel, 2009, p. 102). Furthermore, there is no international consensus on what being radicalized or radical means (Mandel, 2009). Other extant scholarship explores the attributes of terrorism onset and the interaction of imagined geographies. There appears to be a consensus among the literature that terrorism arises in areas where the size of the youth population is disproportionately large, youth employment is low, and in areas where the west (e.g. ideology, politics, culture, ethnicity, etc.) tends to blend—often forcibly with other geographic contextual environments.

Another dimension from the literature is concerned with the mechanisms that govern the spreading of terrorism. There is no single predictable mechanism that governs terrorism. In addition, no scholarship I examined found the movement of people across borders as an intrinsic cause of terrorism (Hegghammer and Nesser 2015). Furthermore, individuals with high linkages to terrorist groups do not even conduct the majority of terrorist activities (Hegghammer and Nesser 2015).

Despite a lack of specific studies of whether refugees may cause terrorism, there is an abundance of literature on the spread of orthodox conflict through refugees. Generally, in orthodox conflict studies, experts view migration as an easy mechanism to associate with spreading violence. For example, one study found that simple geographic proximity is a cause for the spread of conflict to neighboring countries even when controlling for similar causes of conflict (Carmignani and Kler 2015; Fisk 2014).

Some scholars then expand this position beyond orthodox conflict in order to argue that refugees may be the spread of terrorism as well.

However, no definitive consensus emerges amid the literature. Salehyan and Gleditsch suggest that even if refugees never directly take to violence, refugee streams “facilitate” the spread of violence to neighboring countries (2006). Other literature suggests refugees may strain state capacities and prevent the country from resisting “conflict contagion” from spreading (Braithwaite, 2010). Furthermore, Lischer finds that refugee camps may be a direct cause of violence in neighboring states due to their stock piling of supplies, which then become targets (2005). Other studies have taken a more direct inclination to whether refugees are the cause of violence in neighboring countries, revolving around the label “Refugee Warrior.” Yet, as one study has found, the label “Refugee Warrior” is a misnomer that has been employed typically for party-specific interests with little basis in reality (Leenders, 2009).

Extant scholarship has paid less attention to whether refugees pose a greater risk of spreading terrorism—a specific type of conflict—to neighboring countries. Choi and Salehyan provide the most comprehensive scholarship of a possible link between refugees and terrorism.

Their findings indicate that the presence of increased humanitarian aid for hosting refugees invites more terrorist attacks and violence (2013). Yet, another study by Randahl of refugees and terrorism that expands the sample of cases studied and examines the overall countrywide trends contradicts the findings of Choi and Saleyhan. Randahl’s work has not been peer-reviewed on the same conventional level as Choi and Saleyhan’s work (Randahl, 2016). Still, Randahl notes no significant correlation between migration and terrorism (2016). Furthermore, some scholars have revealed that any possible threat of terrorism posed by refugees most likely originates from foreign fighters posing as refugees, and that superpower actions and subsequent

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results—specifically the U.S. and its policies in the Middle East—pose a greater risk of terrorism to countries than even foreign fighters (Schmid, 2016).

Foreign fighters may be the underlying cause that engenders any possible link between migrants and terrorism. Foreign fighters in majority-Islamic countries are the result of the rise of populist Islamism and state-sponsored terrorist activity since the 1970s (Hegghammer 2011). The number of foreign fighters to the MENA have increased in recent times. The conflict in Syria also appears to be drawing many foreign fighters from around the world (Hegghammer 2011). Furthermore, one policy study of Turkey’s management of foreign fighters reveals an increase of thousands of individuals on the country’s “No Entry List” suggesting a concomitant rise of foreign fighters, alongside an increasing amount of legitimate petitions for asylum and refugee status (Yalçinkaya, 2015). Thus, foreign fighters and migrants from conflict zones may appear to be similar from an immigration perspective.

Despite the limited scholarship that examines linkages between refugees and terrorism, the extant scholarship provides a starting point through research that examines various nuances of terrorism as it relates to refugees.

Theory I first argue that conflict and terrorism are similar in that they can both spread, as well as cluster, geographically. However, there are key differences between traditional conflict and terrorism. One difference is that terrorism is inherently easier to spread across borders and clusters regionally as opposed to clustering along borders, i.e., clustering may occur within a region, but state-level distributions appear random. In addition, terrorism spreading—unlike conflict spillover— is not entirely dependent on the movement of people, weapons, or ammunition across borders. Thus, migrant and refugee streams are mostly unrelated to the spread of terrorism. Better determinants of terrorism spreading are certain state capacities and linkages to the West. State capacities can be thought of as characteristics that bolster the state’s primary functions (such as the legitimate monopoly on violence within a territory, or taxation) to more specialized functions (like bureaucratic efficacy). Linkages to the West take the form of states’ adherences to economic, democratic, and diplomatic characteristics that resemble western powers. Ultimately, this theory presupposes no direct correlation between migrants from conflict zones and the threat of terrorism to host countries.

Terrorism in neighboring countries should not be confused with conflict spillover, as these two events are different realizations of conflicts—especially of civil war—and present different risks to states and regimes. Terrorism seems to occur more often in states experiencing some type of violent conflict like civil war (Institute for Economics & Peace, 2015). Thus, Syria’s civil war presents an internal risk of terrorism. Yet terrorism does not stop at borders. Terrorists specifically intend to spread across borders in order to create a grander spectacle and more pressing threat. Terrorism also does not require traditional conflict supplies such as combatants or massive artilleries to spread.

It is possible groups may choose to resort to this form of violence as opposed to spillover conflict as a result of the relative ease of spreading terrorism.

2017

As previously mentioned, the movement of people has become somewhat unnecessary for terrorist attacks. For instance, many terrorist incidents are caused by individuals who are not connected to any belligerent group in the conflict zone (Hegghammer & Nesser 2015). Furthermore, communication technologies have made selfradicalization and “lone-wolf ” terrorists an internal threat to any country without cross-border movement. A “lone-wolf ” is an individual who, through no prior contact or connections to known terror groups, commits an act of terror that later appears to have occurred in relative isolation. As a result of these isolated actors there is no need for migration between countries.

By decoupling the link between the movement of people and terrorism spreading, the inclination shifts to state-level factors as an indicator for the spread of such terrorist incidents. While the causes of terrorism are outlined above, countries respond to the risk of terrorism differently. As a result, the expectation is that countries would experience varying amounts of incidents. I posit that countries with generally stronger state capacities will experience a generally lower risk of terrorism regardless of migrants. Specifically, state capacities that result in or are promoted by strong border management, regime stability, military and security capacity, resilience to home-grown terror groups, and provision of U.S. (or non-domestic sources of) military and non-military aid will experience a lower risk.

A state’s regime and economic system also influences the risk of terrorism. Democratic regimes may be a target for terrorist organizations, but democracies may also reinforce other state capacities to limit the pejorative effects of democracy. For example, democracies may have a decision-making schema—like electoral systems—that limit the tenure of poor decision makers who may otherwise inhibit state security or state capacities (Halperin, 2005). Similarly, advanced and globally integrated economies may actually put a state at greater risk of terrorism. I agree with other scholars that this type of economic system is often a target for terrorist activities because it is seen as a transgression against certain communities like third world countries (Drake, 2007). One study found that advanced democracies that expend effort in shaping other countries’ affairs as well as poorer democracies experience more terrorism (Chenoweth, 2013). However, more developed economies may translate their economic strength into generally stronger state capacities that could potentially increase security (such as an efficient police force or military). Thus, a strong economy is also a state capacity that can deter terrorism, but advanced global economies may simultaneously be the target for terrorism.

Overall, my argument is more interested in how the state capacities of host states affect the number of terrorism incidents. I define certain aspects of state capacities and how each influences the risk of terrorism as follows: Regime stability refers to the general level of uncertainty within each country’s regime (i.e., leadership change process, predictability, etc.). Strong regime stability may make it easier to coordinate security efforts, control borders, and coordinate with international organizations and countries to keep track of potential threats. Dynamic changes in regime stability undermine various state capacities and limit the potential for receiving foreign aid as well.

Aid from the U.S., such as military and non-military aid, may help build certain state capacities and deter the risk of terrorism. The consensus on whether specific types of aid from the U.S. deter or perpetuate terrorism is unclear, and only a handful of serious studies

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THE IRRATIONAL FEAR OF TERRORISM REGARDING MIGRANTS FROM CONFLICT ZONES

have closely examined any connection (Bapat 2011; Boutton and Carter 2013). Military and non-military aid is not limited to cash transfers.

Rather, such military-style operations like the sharing of strategic intelligence may also bolster state capacities. Where certain states in this study have large domestic security spending, they rely much less on the U.S. for aid.

Specifically, U.S. military aid may help build military capacity; however, this kind of aid is complex. A strong military would intuitively lead one to assume a lower risk of terrorism. Yet strong military capacity may also indicate the capacity to become involved in a conflict.

Involvement in the conflict may make a particular country a target for terrorist attacks, as groups perpetrating terrorist incidents may be inclined to retaliate (see: Hypothesis 4). Still, stronger military and police capacities help to prevent terrorist incidents through distinctive means, e.g., perceived level of security, actual de-escalation of situations, or preventative measures. In addition, dealing with pre-existing homebased terror groups may help build policing and military capacity in dealing with terrorism. However, if the home-based groups remain relatively strong within a country, this may hinder military capacity.

Therefore, stronger military capacity will overall deter the risk of terrorism, but involvement in a conflict or presence of domestic terrorist groups can alter the efficacy of the deterrence. Thus, one of the hypotheses is to test whether a history of terrorism increases terrorism incidents (see: Hypothesis 5).

Ultimately, civil conflict has a tendency to create a risk of terrorism.

Terrorism spreads more easily than traditional conflict, yet while conflict clusters, terrorist activities cluster on a larger regional scale, posing a threat to neighboring countries. However, this threat can be deterred or actualized depending on a specific country’s capacities, including border security, regime stability, military and security capacity, resilience to home-grown terror groups, as well as the presence of U.S. military and non-military aid. However, certain ideological and regime aspects of states may increase the risk of terrorism due to specific targeting. The next section will provide empirical data about the spatial peculiarities of terrorism, the data on rational numbers of refugees and terrorism, as well as the recorded incidents of terrorism.

In addition, data will be presented on the estimated numbers of foreign fighters.

Hypotheses Hypothesis 1: The amount of terrorism increases if state capacities are generally weak.

Hypothesis 2: The amount of terrorism increases if a country is in geographical proximity to a conflict zone if state capacities are already weak.

Hypothesis 3: The amount of terrorism increases if a country is perceived as having a regime or economic system that are targeted by terrorist organizations.

Hypothesis 4: The amount of terrorism increases if a country is engaged in armed conflict.

Hypothesis 5: The amount of terrorism increases if a country has prior history of terrorist incidents.

Observations and Data

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Anthony Calacino

An important facet of this paper’s principal theory is that the movement of people has become unnecessary for terrorism to spread beyond a conflict zone. All of the aforementioned hypotheses predict actual movement across borders is an erroneous cause of the threat of terrorism. However, Hypothesis 2 states: the threat of terrorism increases if a state is in close geographical proximity to conflict zone if state capacities are weak. Thus, for this study of the Syrian conflict, an examination of terrorism of the three countries emphasized in this paper is presented below.

Figure 1: Terrorism incidents and fatalities distributed across three conflict zone bordering countries 2010-2015

Terrorism incidents appear unevenly distributed with no clear geographic pattern, that is, there are no obvious sole clusters that neighbor Syria (the conflict zone). Geographical clustering statistics reveal no significant hotspots other than the country of Lebanon. While the significance level is somewhat robust, Lebanon’s small size raises skepticism of the country as a hotspot. We see that terrorist attacks do not cluster like spillover violence near the borders of the conflict zone. Terrorist attacks seem somewhat random, suggesting the movement of people from a country is not necessary for such attacks. There is some clustering in Turkey near its northern border with Iraq, but this has more to do with the Kurdish people and what they claim as Kurdish territory. However, there is weak clustering of terrorism incidents in this region. A possible counter is that the majority of refugees in this neighboring country move to and subsequently live in and around the major cities. Yet the attacks seem to take place even in rural areas as well as near the border. Also, other than weak significance levels in Amman or Beirut, there are no major clusters around the major cities.

A specific analysis of borders shows that terrorism in the region appears to be propagating within Turkey and Lebanon and not within Jordan. Indeed, Lebanon’s border management is practically nonexistent. A United Nations report in 2008 found that the borders were almost entirely open without any management (United Nations Security Council, 2008). Lebanon’s borders are not only reflective of less

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than ideal state capacities, but may be conducive to actual spillover violence producing more instability, which can also increase the risk of terrorism. Spillover conflict from the Syrian Civil War has poured into Lebanon on multiple occasions (Masi, 2015).

Jordan, however, has a very different border situation. For example, the U.S. government has paid nearly half a billion U.S. dollars for a program aimed to build a security wall on Jordan’s northern border with Syria and Iraq (Arkin, 2016). These payments have thus far gone toward a high-tech border radar system that functions as a virtual wall between Jordan and Syria with the intent to finish the construction of a physical wall in the near future (Arkin, 2016). While borders have a mixed effect on the risk of terrorism, this type of border security and aid is not equally available to all states facing a similar risk. The wall indicates stronger state capacities, military organization, and prevents conflict spillover. Turkey is in the process of building a “token” wall along the border with Syria, yet it does not approach the level of Jordan’s new border security system (Afanasieva, 2014). Yet Turkey has experienced less terrorism incidents than Lebanon in certain years (and especially less if one considers population size as a ratio to incidents), despite a porous border. A Rand Corporation study found Lebanon to have the greatest risk of conflict spillover from the Syrian Civil War, which is directly related to border management and security (Young, Stebbins, Frederick, & Al-Shahery, 2014). Ultimately, borders do not seem to influence the number of terrorism incidents directly but may help to maintain state capacities by limiting conflict spillover.

Thus, regarding Hypothesis 2, it may be possible to reject the null hypothesis. Being in close proximity to a conflict zone does not automatically increase the amount of terrorism a country experiences.

However, if state capacities are weak, then geographic proximity may play a role in increasing terrorism incidents.

Countries in Focus: Numbers of Refugees in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan The following section reports numbers of terrorism incidents and fatalities, refugees, refugee-like persons, and total persons of concern as reported by the Global Terrorism Database and the UNCHR data sources (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism START, 2016; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2016). A detailed analysis of the three states’ differing capacities and characteristics, as they relate to the threat of terrorism, is presented afterward.

Table 1: Lebanon Asylum Seekers/Refugees and Terrorist Incidents (Syrian Migrant Origin) Year

Refugees (incl. refugeelike situations)

Asylumseekers (pending cases)

Others of Concern

Total Population

Terror Incidents

Terror Fatalities

2010

64

141

2011

124

367

2012

126939

242

5331

10

1

127181

15

9

2013

85124

332

851616

121

190

205 4840

2014

1147494

417

1992

2017

1149903

204

114

Table 2: Jordan Asylum Seekers/Refugees and Terrorist Incidents (Syrian Migrant Origin) Year

Refugees (incl. refugeelike situations)

Asylumseekers (pending cases)

Total Population

Terror Incidents

Terror Fatalities

2010

198

287

485

2011

193

2618

2811

0

0

2012

238798

2013

585304

491

239289

2

2

0

585304

2

0

2014

623112

0

623112

3

1

Table 3: Turkey Asylum Seekers/Refugees and Terrorist Incidents (Syrian Migrant Origin) Year

Refugees (incl. refugeelike situations)

Aslyumseekers (penind cases)

Returned Refugees

Others of Concern

Total Population

Terror Incidents

Terror Fatalities

9494

51

25

2010

9

65

2011

19

205

74

2012

248466

200

68573

317239

190

244

2013

585601

110

140756

726467

42

82

2014

1557899

250

1558149

90

38

9270

Overall, this data suggests that refugees are not correlated with terror incidents. Rather, the successive state capacities help to determine the different outcomes of the actualized risk of terrorism in the three states analyzed. I have already discussed border management as a risk of terrorism determinant. Next, I discuss regime stability as it underpins much of state capacity. Lebanon’s regime is and has been unstable for several decades since the end of its civil war in 1990. Since the start of the Syrian conflict, Lebanon was unable to elect a president for over a third of the duration of the conflict (Middle East Monitor, 2016). The Turkish regime is also generally unstable. As recently as the summer of 2016, there was almost a successful military coup in the country, indicating deeper divisions and wavering state capacities (Shaheen, 2016). While these events of leadership and regime change are not directly responsible for increased risks, they demonstrate the overall status of regime stability in Turkey and Lebanon. In contrast, Jordan has seen few challenges to its regime stability in the past decade. Even during the tumultuous Arab Spring, Jordan experienced relatively few and limited protests.

In addition to overall state stability, state capacities also depend on whether a state is facing an internal threat of terrorism. Specifically, terrorists and/or destabilizing crimes by Hezbollah and other terrorist groups in Lebanon, terrorism crimes from the Kurdistan Worker’s Party in Turkey, and violent attacks in Jordan from Al-Qaeda affiliates and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) all represent dif-

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THE IRRATIONAL FEAR OF TERRORISM REGARDING MIGRANTS FROM CONFLICT ZONES

ferent cases of internal threats to the three states in focus. However, Jordan’s relative success with diffusing the attacks of the PLO in the 1970s and few instances of internal disruption since have placed the state in an extremely fortunate position where militant forces do not internally weaken state capacities. Ongoing threats to internal security in Turkey and Lebanon present the opposite story, where state capacities are simultaneously defending against internal and external terrorist threats.

U.S. or non-domestic aid has an incredible impact on varying levels of terrorist threats. Jordan receives considerably more aid than the other two countries in question. Open-access estimates of U.S. multipurposed aid to the three states in 2015 are as follows: Turkey had the lowest spent funds at $1.09 million, followed by Lebanon where $93.36 million was spent, both of which are outpaced by Jordan where $988.57 million was spent (ForeignAssistance.gov, 2015). Much of this aid is not military oriented, and many funds go to economic development.

This suggests that bolstering state capacities through aid may decrease the risk of terrorism, and that limiting economic disenfranchisement may help to stymie the causes of terrorism such as high unemployment.

Additionally, massive aid payments may also suggest better institutions and bureaucracy, as the U.S. may choose to cut off funds to questionable recipients, which may indicate stronger capacities.

U.S. aid is an important determinant in the threat of terrorism to this region. However, the role of U.S. aid is too complex for this study to explore. For example, certain studies have suggested that Jordan may actually require some acts of terrorism in order to maintain the level of U.S. aid the country receives annually (Bapat, 2011). But it is currently impossible to distinguish or discern if the government has any policies aimed at ‘maintaining’ terrorist activities or threats. Still, that Jordan receives large amounts of aid and has the lowest numbers of terrorism incidents suggests the absence of aid may have a negative consequence for countries like Turkey and Lebanon regarding the threat of terrorism.

In addition to state capacities, state characteristics can affect the threat of terrorism. To reiterate, certain state or regime characteristics like democracy or large advanced economies may increase the risk of terrorism due to specific targeting by terrorist groups. In the three countries studied, Lebanon’s semi-democratic regime and political dominance of the Christian Maronite religion may make it more of a target than the more autocratic and Muslim-dominated Jordan. Turkey’s majority Islamic religion and large economy may not make it as much of a target for terrorist attacks. However, its involvement in the Syrian Civil War as well as its advantageous physical border with Europe likely explain its higher number of terrorist incidents. As a result, and in accordance with the data, Turkey would experience less of a risk than Lebanon but more so than Jordan.

Taken together, these cases show some support for Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2. Varying degrees of general state capacities in each of the countries seem to be correlated to the number of terrorist incidents each country experiences. Second, that the lower number of terrorist incidents in Jordan correlates with stronger state capacities suggests that there is support for Hypothesis 2: that geography may increase the risk of terrorism if state capacities are weak. As a result, it would seem the movement of people across borders is not an important factor because state capacities explain variation in terrorism in a geographic sense despite high-level movement of refugees to all three

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countries studied.

Foreign Fighters:

As the terrorism in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan can be explained without migration from Syria, I suggest that any link between migrants or refugees and terrorism—if not explained by other parts of the principal theory—is the result of activities carried out by foreign fighters. The nature of foreign fighters presents an especially challenging obstruction to empirical observation of their existence and behavior. However, certain governments in the region, as well as the UN, have estimated the numbers of foreign nationals entering Syria and fighting for one or more groups. The major concern of governments and the UN is the possibility of these particular individuals returning to their home states with intentions of inciting violence or terrorist activities. The best estimates for the overall number of foreign fighters in Syria was estimated to be over 20,000 at the beginning of 2015 (Peter, 2015). The return of individuals from the conflict zone who may perpetrate terrorist activities has the ability to force unnecessary scrutiny upon legitimate asylum seekers and refugees. Through unfortunate circumstance, refugees shares the blame with the returned foreign fighter.

As for neighboring countries, the number of foreign fighters may indicate the potential risks for that country when foreign fighters return home. Some estimates suggest the number of Jordanian fighters in Syria for the past five years at around 3,900, with 1,990 killed, and a further 265 missing (Ammon News, 2016). However, the reliability and accuracy of this data is highly questionable, highlighting the difficulty in accurate data on foreign fighters. As for Turkey, more trustworthy estimates range from 600-1,300 Turkish nationals as foreign fighters (Peter, 2015; Yalçinkaya, 2015). As for Lebanon, ICSR estimates find around 900 fighters of Lebanese origin were in Syria at the beginning of 2015 (Peter, 2015).

Another aspect of foreign fighters is their utilization of neighboring countries as facilitators of transit to and from the conflict zone. This helps to explain why the threat of terrorism may be greater to Lebanon or Turkey than it is to Jordan, seeing as the former two countries serve as locations with easier access to the Mediterranean or Europe, i.e., located physically on regional migration pathways. For example, Jordan’s mostly land-locked country makes the same mode of travel difficult for an individual coming from the conflict zone, especially given the difficulty of crossing into Jordan’s adjacent neighbors. In addition, reduced state capacities may make it easier for foreign fighters to travel, suggesting the cost benefit analysis makes travel through Turkey and Lebanon more compelling than through Jordan. Turkey may be at an even greater risk. Not only does it border the Mediterranean Sea, but its physical borders with Europe make it a better country for transit to other locations.

Data: OECD states, terrorist incidents, and refugee populations To expand this analysis, I conducted an OLS (ordinary least squares) regression with a pooled cross-section and time-series sample and control for random effects. I chose a random effects model because the selection of my countries within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was essentially akin to a

The Hinckley Journal of Politics

random selection. This method allows for some direct testing of the aforementioned hypotheses. While the results of an analysis like this are useful, they are not confirming. This analysis can help pinpoint which factors have a statistically observable effect. The regression analysis will be analyzing Hypotheses 1,3,4, and 5.

This regression includes all but one of the world’s 35 members of the OECD, and will take into account migration from all active conflict zones and terrorism activities creating refugee-like populations. The choice in limiting this specific data analysis to a relatively small selection of countries is due to several reasons. The primary reason being that migrants tend to focus on moving toward wealthier countries.

Second, as Turkey is an OECD state, its inclusion in this part of the data analysis will complement and help to bridge the more qualitative aspects of this research paper to a detailed quantitative analysis.

This data analysis takes into account refugee-like situations. This includes officially considered refugees and those believed to be in similar circumstances but who do not have the same legal classification from all active conflict zones in the world as recorded by the UNHCR. While the Syrian refugee crisis may consume the majority of media and public attention, the majority of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are not Syrian. It is also important to mention that the measure of democracy in this statistical test is taken from the Polity 4 data set (Marshall, 2015). Many similar studies use this dataset to incorporate into panel data as well. Log gross domestic product per capita roughly helps capture state capacities to operationalize that portion of my theory. I use the log version of the data to scale the coefficients to a manageable figure. Clearly, this is not the ideal measure. A number of variables can capture the nuances of economic development, and perhaps in some ways, log GDP/per capita does not capture all aspects.

Data regarding involvement in armed conflict is taken from the PRIO dataset and is used as a dummy variable (Gleditsch, Wallensteen, Sollenberg, & Strand, 2002). In addition, the variable called “terrorist history” will control for clustering of terrorist incidents as well as help test for specific targeting of certain states. The following table outlines more information about the data used in this panel setup.

Dependent variable Independent variables

Whether a state is involved in at least one armed conflict in that year

The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

Democracy

Yearly measure of democratic quality

Polity 4 Project

Terrorist history

Dummy variable of whether a terrorist incident had occurred in the past year

START Global Terrorism Database

VARI-

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

ABLES

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Model 5

Model 6

Model 7

Model 8

Model 9

Refu-

0.000113

0.000110

0.000111

0.000110

0.000109

9.86e-

9.62e-

9.95e-

0.000103

***

***

***

***

***

05***

05***

05***

***

(1.02e-05)

(1.02e-

(1.04e-

(1.04e-

(1.04e-

(1.01e-

(1.27e-

(1.04e-

(1.03e-

05)

05)

05)

05)

05)

05)

05)

05)

2.354**

2.350**

2.295

2.293**

2.516**

2.618**

gees

Year

(1.083) Coun-

(1.084)

(1.092)

(1.094)

(1.090)

(1.121)

-2.37e-08

-4.03e-08

-4.29e-08

-1.70e-

-1.65e-

07***

07***

(6.33e-

(6.15e-

(6.08e-

(5.40e-

(5.92e-

try Population

08)

08)

08)

08)

08)

7.092

7.282

7.864*

8.218*

(5.079)

(5.069)

(4.679)

(4.882)

GDP/

13.77

-9.705

-7.883

-5.959

capita

(12.53)

(9.923)

(10.93)

(12.78)

Armed

55.56***

53.52***

41.18***

Con-

(11.53)

(13.09)

(11.52)

Terrorist History Log-

flict Polity 4 5.868* -1.207

Unit

Source

Terrorism incidents

Per country per year

START Global Terrorism Database

Number of refugees recorded in that country per year

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

All persons of concern

Refugees, like situations, asylum seekers, returned individuals

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Log GDP/capita

Current USD logged GDP/ capita per year per country

World Bank Data

(3.311)

(3.179) 4.617

-4,732**

-4,724**

-4,616**

-4,549**

stant

Variable Name

Refugees

Armed Conflict

Table 5: Terrorism incidents and refugee/migrants from conflict zones 2010-2015

Con-

Table 4: Regression Analysis Variable Table

2017

Obser-

-

-

5,015**

5,218**

88.42

1.990

(3.673)

(2,179)

(2,182)

(2,198)

(2,203)

(2,194)

(2,256)

(56.15)

(3.375)

204

204

204

204

204

204

198

198

204

35

35

35

35

35

35

34

34

25

vations

Number of groups

Standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Table 5 contains some interesting results. First, the refugee variable is significant and positive for all models. However, the variable is not practically significant for all cases. For example, model 7 predicts that roughly 11,000 refugees would need to increase in a state to expect one more terrorist attack. While there are several countries that admit far more refugees than even this number each year, the majority of host states admit far less. Therefore, I argue that this correlation is not practically significant due to the lack of predictability for most states.

Still, the results suggest some hint of a correlation for states that admit more refugees than average. However, this does not hold under closer

19

THE IRRATIONAL FEAR OF TERRORISM REGARDING MIGRANTS FROM CONFLICT ZONES

scrutiny. For one, other variables are effective at explaining terrorism.

Second, the direction of terrorism trends is not known. The GTD database records hate crimes against immigrants as terrorism, and as such, it is plausible that hate crimes against refugees are carried out in host countries due to racism or xenophobia. As a result, an increase in new refugees may be correlated with an increase in hate crimes.

Refugees would be the recipients of violence rather than the cause.

Other interesting variables include armed conflict and terrorist history, as both are positive and significant in models 6 and 7. This suggests I can reject hypotheses 4 and 5 as null. The effect of armed conflict and terrorism history together suggest that terrorism targets specific countries. This supports aforementioned theories that argue terrorist focus is strategic in its country-level targets.

As for the hypotheses dealing with state capacities, the results of the regression analysis are not compelling. Log GDP per capita in the tests was intended to capture both the quality of a country’s economy as well as its resemblance to an advanced global economy. Even though log GDP per capita is negative, it is not significant, so I cannot reject Hypotheses 1 or 3 as null. Furthermore, it is interesting that in models 7 and 8 the measure of democracy is both negative and positive, but the result is not significant. Therefore, as I previously argued, the attributes of state capacities have certain terrorist abating and amplifying qualities that mystify the correlation of economic development or political stability. Another interesting result is that the control variable for time (Year) suggests that terrorism has increased overall from 2010 to 2015.

Conclusion This paper set out to find any possible causal process or link between numbers of refugees and the number of terrorism incidents in host countries. The data analysis reveals a weak link between asylum seekers, migrants, or refugees and the threat of terrorism to neighboring countries (or more developed countries without similar geographic proximity). Indeed, the analysis found other variables better explain the number of terrorism incidents, and refugees may actually be the target of violence as opposed to the source. The aforementioned analysis of border countries to the Syrian conflict suggests there is no clear causal process by which refugees increase the number of terrorist incidents in a host country.

State capacities, geographic proximity, and state or regime characteristics influence the threat of terrorism to a particular country as well as whether a country is engaged in armed conflict. Geography does not automatically increase the risk of terrorism, rather, the case study of Syria shows that geography does not as efficiently predict terrorism incidents as the quality of state capacities. Countries with weak capacities (and countries with weak capacities that are situated close to conflict zones) that are perceived as having targeted regime types are at the greatest risk of terrorism. Rather than looking to migrants for explaining the spread of terrorism across borders, spillover conflict can weaken state capacities and make a state more perceptible to the threats of terrorism. Foreign fighters may cross borders for nefarious reasons and give the appearance of refugees or migrants causing terrorism.

Despite the limited role migration from conflict zones has in the threat of terrorism, countries should take precautions to ensure that refugees and migrants do not wear down their state capacities. However, banning or preventing the refuge or settlement of migrants escaping

20

Anthony Calacino

conflict does not automatically mean state capacities are sufficient enough to deter threats of terrorism. Banning resettlement does not change the aspects or ideologies that may cause a country to be a target in the first place. Banning migrants certainly does not change a country’s geographic risk. Countries and international communities should engender state capacities in order to deter the threat of terrorism while simultaneously hosting more migrants and refugees from conflict zones in accordance with UNHCR guidelines. In addition, the empirical evidence suggests that involvement in armed conflict should be scrutinized since it appears to engender the risk of terrorism. However, it is outside the scope of this analysis to understand how specific policies for involvement in conflict affect the risk of terrorism.

Future studies should expand the number of countries covered in the statistical analysis and investigate other individual countries for varied case analyses. Scholars should more closely examine the specific mechanisms by which state capacities bring about a reduction in the threat of terrorism, with a specific emphasis on what types, how much, and what effects U.S. military and non-military aid has on the state capacities and reductions in the threat of terrorism. Future studies should test the interaction between economic development and democracy on the independent variable of terrorism incidents. It would be interesting to expand the range of years analyzed to the extent possible.

The inclusion of ongoing conflicts in quantitative analysis would further shed light on patterns of terrorism following ethnic and civil war.

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Retrieved August 1, 2016, from Reuters: http://www. reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis- turkey-wall-idUSBREA4409Z20140505 Ammon News. (2016, 8 8). 4000

Retrieved 9 9, 2016, from Ammon News: http://www.ammonnews.net/article/277692 Amnesty International. (2016, February 3). Syria’s refugee crisis in numbers. Retrieved August 11, 2016, from Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/02/syriasrefugee-crisis-in-numbers/ Arkin, W. M. (2016, February 24). The Great Wall of Jordan: How the US Wants to Keep the Islamic State Out. Vice News.

Bapat, N. A. (2011). Transnational terrorism, US military aid, and the incentive to misrepresent.

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Boutton, A., & Carter, D. B. (2013). Fair-Weather Allies? Terrorism and the Allocation of US Foreign Aid. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1144-1173.

Braithwaite, A. (2010). Resisting infection: How state capacity conditions conflict contagion .

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Carmignani, F., & Kler, P. (2015). Surrounded by wars: Quantifying the role of spatial conflict spillovers. Economic Analysis and Policy, 7-16.

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Chenoweth, E. (2013). Terrorism and Democracy. Annual Review of Political Science, 355-78.

Choi, S.-W., & Salehyan, I. (2013). No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Refugees, Humanitarian Aid, and Terrorism. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 53-75.

Coppedge, M. J.-E.-t. (2016). V-Dem [Country-Year/Country-Date] Datatset v6.2. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project.

Dionigi, F. (2016). The Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon: State Fragility and Social Resilience.

London School of Economics and Political Science. London: LSE Middle East Centre Paper Series.

Drake, C. J. (2007). The role of ideology in terrorists’ target selection.

Terrorism and Political Violence, 53-85.

Fisk, K. (2014). Refugee Geography and the Difussion of Armed Conflict in Africa. Civil Wars, 255-275.

ForeignAssistance.gov. (2015). Foreign Assitance: Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey.

Gleditsch, N. P., Wallensteen, P., Sollenberg, M., & Strand, H. (2002).

Armed Conflict 1964- 2001: A New Dataset. Journal of Peace Research, 39(5).

Hallett, B. (2004). Dishonest Crimes, Dishonest Language: an Argument About Terrorism. In F. M. Moghaddam, & A. Marsella, Understanding Terrorism: Psychosocial Roots, Consequences, and Interventions (pp. 49-67).

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Halperin, M. S. (2005). The Democracy Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace. New York: Routledge.

Hegghammer, T. (2011). The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters. International Security, 53-94.

Hegghammer, T., & Nesser, P. (2015). Assessing the Islamic State’s Commitment to Attacking the West. Perspectives on Terrorism, 9(4).

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Jordan and Lebanon. Mediterranean Politics, 14(3), 343-363.

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21

Prison Privatization: A Politics of Sight

By Ellie Fuller University of Utah

Many politicians support prison privatization under the guise that it will save taxpayers money. But in its implementation, prison privatization can have disastrous and disgusting consequences for prisoners and prison employees. In this paper, I will examine the ways in which prison administrations and politicians attempt to hide corruption in privatized prisons. Analyzing the methods used by those who attempt to reveal corruption will demonstrate the effectiveness of a politics of sight at inciting change in the prison system. I will also address the physical, linguistic, and emotional distance that legislators and the public create between prisoners and themselves.

Keywords: Politics of sight, prison privatization, corruption, distancing

What goes on inside these prisons is largely hidden from view, and there is little accountability for wrongdoing.

—Michele Deitch (2006) At least Sesame Street is actually talking about prison; the rest of us are much happier completely ignoring it. Perhaps because it’s so easy not to care about prisoners.

—John Oliver (2014) Introduction Incarceration is such a prevalent issue in the United States that an educational television show for children, Sesame Street, now features a Muppet whose father is in prison. In fact, the U.S. possesses 25% of the world’s prisoners, though it makes up only 5% of the world’s population (Engel, 2014). Yet as commentator John Oliver remarks, most U.S. citizens pay little attention to prisoners and may not know that for-profit companies now operate many prisons (2014). Running prisons for profit means that private contractors may provide suboptimal care for inmates in the interest of maximizing revenue. With prison privatization, inmates are more likely to receive inadequate health care and inedible or insufficient food. Limited funds also affect prison employees, as private prisons often have untrained guards and are severely understaffed (Klas, 2015). The buildings are also often in desperate need of repair. Thus, private prisons create an unsafe environment in which prisoners must live and employees must work.

Why isn’t there more public discussion and awareness of these prison conditions? What would happen if these prison conditions were fully revealed to the American public? This paper addresses these questions using Pachirat’s (2011) theory of a “politics of sight,” which analyzes barriers to sight as well as the effectiveness of sight in motivating change. My analysis offers explanations about the phenomenon of prison privatization, specifically why inhumane practices in private

prisons continue to exist.

In what follows, I first describe Pachirat’s theory in some detail as it creates the lens through which I examine prison privatization. I then provide a brief background about prison privatization. In the body of the paper, I focus on failed attempts to hide corruption within prisons and the motivations behind this concealment. I also evaluate activists’ methods of increasing sight and awareness of corruption within privatized prisons. I concentrate on tangible, legislative change (or lack thereof) resulting from increased sight and activism to determine the effectiveness of sight. Finally, I address the complications of a politics of sight by exploring problematic ways of seeing and subtle forms of distancing; I interpret common methods the public and politicians use to distance themselves from prisoners and the effect this distance has on general attitudes and political action.

Pachirat’s Politics of Sight Pachirat’s politics of sight is a theory that seeks to understand how societies organize activities that are dirty, distasteful, or horrifying.

Pachirat (2011) develops his theoretical concepts in the context of a slaughterhouse. An essential aspect of the politics of sight is the act of concealment because concealing horrifying and disgusting realities allows immoral practices to persist. Pachirat uses the term sequestration to describe hiding something or removing it from sight. Sequestration is key to Pachirat’s theory because lack of sight allows the public to ignore or be unaware of corruption and inhumane practices; individuals will not be outraged or mobilize if they cannot see injustice.

Pachirat asks whether there would be some form of political and social change if the general public had access to the inside of slaughterhouses.

Perhaps the shock of the revelation would encourage the population to organize against the routinized killings, or at least cause people to eat less meat.

Slaughterhouse administrations do not disclose information willingly

23

PRISON PRIVATIZATION: A POLITICS OF SIGHT

because it would likely result in economic losses. Thus, concealment and sequestration serve the political purpose of maintaining public ignorance about cruelty within slaughterhouses in order to maximize the meat industry’s profit.

One effective way of limiting sight is through creating distance between the observer and the appalling situation. Physical, social, and linguistic distances serve to restrict sight and prevent strong emotion.

Pachirat describes the physical distance created in the slaughterhouse as a means to preserve sequestration. Holding the live cattle in a distant, closed off area of the slaughterhouse reduces the number of workers who actually interact with animals. This system of separation makes the killing process more distant and abstract for the workers. The social barriers that exist in the hierarchies of the slaughterhouse also contribute to sequestration in that they hinder open and honest communication. Without communication and an exchange of ideas, workers remain largely isolated from the perspectives of their superiors, so a meat hanger will likely not hear about a quality control worker’s experiences in the slaughterhouse. This isolation cripples workers in the sense that they are unable to broaden their sight beyond their specific job or knowledge about the slaughterhouse. Linguistic distancing is also a useful tactic of concealment in a politics of sight. Using euphemisms offers a sanitized version of reality that can prevent people from seeing the repugnant process of routinized slaughter. Pachirat provides an example of such linguistic manipulation in terms of animals becoming meat: “from steer to steak” and “from heifer to hamburger” (2011, p. 30). Labeling meat with terms that exclude the living animal from the conversation also removes the living, breathing animal from metaphorical sight. These distancing tactics create effective sequestration and shelter people from the truth; industrialized slaughter remains efficient and ignored because methods of distancing prevent or warp sight in a way that discourages questioning and moral objections.

Pachirat theorizes that, ideally, increased transparency surrounding repugnant activities will lead people to mobilize for change in existing arrangements. However, he offers a counterargument to the politics of sight: the shock spiral conundrum. This is the idea that if slaughterhouses were made visible to the public, with complete transparency and glass walls, that people would not remain outraged and disgusted permanently. Moreover, Pachirat offers an alternate reaction to that of horror and motivation for improvement: fascination. The shock spiral conundrum addresses the possibility that people, with increased exposure, will become numb to the terrible routines of the slaughterhouse. Some of the public may even enjoy the gore. Pachirat explains the paradox of both sight and sequestration in generating emotional reactions: “The politics of sight feeds off the very mechanisms of distance and concealment it seeks to overcome; sight and sequestration exist symbiotically” (2011, p. 252). With total transparency, a practice can become commonplace and may not elicit a reaction of disgust or a desire for transformation. Both complete sequestration and entire visibility inhibit emotional reaction and the incentive to renovate degenerate systems.

Similar to the shock spiral conundrum is the role of pity in the politics of sight. Pachirat says pity is essential to achieve change: “In a politics of sight, pity and its related emotions carry the burden of transformation” (2011, p. 248). In order for people to resist inhumane practices, they must feel a sufficiently strong emotion: horror, disgust, and shock (Pachirat, 2011). So, with consistent, absolute sight, people

24

Ellie Fuller

may become accustomed to certain situations and will not react emotionally. Individuals must feel connected with the subject of abuse, to a certain extent. Significant emotional distance between the observer and the victim (e.g. cow, prisoner, etc.) is not conducive to the observer advocating for justice.

Background This paper focuses on two different types of prison privatization.

The first type of privatization is contracting out specific services, e.g. health care, to corporations while the government still runs the prison.

The other form of privatization is more comprehensive; the government shifts responsibility for management and operation of an entire prison to the private sector (Cheung, 2000). According to Aman and Greenhouse (2015), the government has come to rely on these privatization tactics in the past decade to respond to the political climate. Many politicians view privatization as a solution to taxpayers’ resistance to expanding government budgets. In fact, Aman and Greenhouse argue that privatization reflects discourse regarding the relationship between the government and businesses more generally (2015). In an era of globalization and the U.S. pursuit of neoliberal capitalism, ceding control of prisons to corporations seems like a theoretically attractive approach to citizens who want limited government. However, while privatization is not inherently disgusting, it yields negative consequences. The government runs prisons out of obligation, as part of their sovereign duty to provide for law and order, whereas private companies run prisons for profit. Corporations are not accountable to the people and thus do not have the same motivations as the government does to provide proper care for inmates.

Prison privatization has also been a response to the exploding prison population and current system of mass incarceration. The War on Drugs contributed to the overcrowded prisons and provided an impetus to increased privatization (Cheung, 2000). While racism in the criminal justice system and mandatory minimum sentencing laws play important roles in the prison system and in privatization, these issues are beyond the scope of this paper. Although something must be done about the expanding U.S. prison population, privatizing prisons will not fix the current prison industrial complex and may be part of that problem.

Sequestration and Corruption, Increased Sight, and Distancing The aspects of the politics of sight that I discuss are the processes of sequestration and corruption, the role of increased sight on political change, and distancing. I discuss privatization—as well as cutting state funding from prisons—explicitly in the sequestration and corruption section. Most of the examples I use in that section are of corruption within Florida state prisons. I expand beyond Florida in the increased sight section by identifying three different cases in which activists have attempted to increase sight and awareness about the negative effects of prison privatization. I then look at specific policy changes resulting from such activism. In the distancing section I do not address privatization specifically, but I analyze the ways people distance themselves from prisoners in general. Distancing tactics do not always operate in terms of visibility and invisibility; instead, they prevent the public from

The Hinckley Journal of Politics

fully acknowledging prisoners’ humanity. In some cases, dominant visibility normalizes injustice and becomes a means of creating distance.

Sequestration and Corruption With a large percentage of the public in prison, the U.S. should be cognizant of the negative impacts that privatization has on prison conditions. Yet prison privatization continues to rise in Florida and throughout the nation (Klas, 2015). Sequestration allows privatization to persist by hiding corruption. Corruption, in the case of prison privatization, is the failure to meet the needs of inmates and the violation of inmates’ human rights. The instances I examine are examples of unsuccessful attempts at sequestration of corruption; if the sequestration were truly effective, I would not be able to encounter information about it with my method of research. The focus of this section is primarily on politicians’ and prison employees’ attempts to sequester the corruption within privatized prisons.

Florida: Politicians' Attempts at Sequestration Florida has the nation’s third largest prison population, and as a result many citizens are in favor of prison privatization as a means of relieving the tax burden of state-run prisons (Klas, 2015). Florida’s governor Rick Scott is a dedicated advocate of prison privatization and has attempted to conceal corruption within private prisons. To understand why defunding Florida state prisons is relevant to prison privatization, it is important to be aware of Governor Scott’s potential motivations. The GEO Group (GEO) and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), private companies that operate prisons, donate immense amounts of money to Republican campaigns in Florida, specifically to Scott (Klas, 2015). Cutting funding for prisons at the governmental level requires state prisons to contract out to companies like GEO and CCA. So when Scott decreases funding in Florida prisons, he is providing business for GEO and CCA. Campaign contributions from these companies create a possible incentive for Scott to privatize Florida prisons and sequester corruption within prisons.

Scott and other legislators did not openly discuss their strategy to cut one billion dollars from the prison budget and shift responsibility for prison operation to private companies; they used the budget process to gradually privatize the prison system in a way that was subtle and insidious (Klas, 2015). This lack of transparency suggests Scott’s attempt to sequester a budget cut that would have potentially dangerous consequences for Florida prisons. Randy Ball, a former legislator and prison budget advisor, warned Scott that his budget cuts were unsafe (Klas, 2015). Less than 24 hours after Ball gave this advice, he was asked to resign. Scott and other legislators had to silence Ball to conceal the hazardous budget reforms. They demanded Ball resign because his opposition to budget cuts and privatization threatened to reveal the disgusting reality of such dramatic reforms.

Scott and other legislators attempted to maintain secrecy about prison conditions in their dealings with former Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Michael Crews (Brown and Klas, 2015). With Scott’s budget cuts, Florida prisons were in a state of disrepair and chaos. Staffing levels were dangerously low, requiring some guards to work up to 16 hours a shift (Klas, 2015). This contributed to an increased use of force by guards, a rising number of inmate deaths, more attacks

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on corrections officers, and an inability to keep count of inmates (Brown and Klas, 2015). In addition to being short-staffed, prison buildings were falling apart: electrical, plumbing, and security systems were failing, and roofs were caving in (Brown and Klas, 2015). Prisoners’ needs were not being met, and the condition of the prisons was inhumane. Crews pleaded for more staff and repair money for the prisons, and while he did, Scott was authorizing shifts of funds away from those needs (Klas, 2015). In order to communicate the gravity of the situation, Crews took photographs of prisons’ disrepair (Klas, 2015). Governor Scott’s office ordered Crews not to show anyone the photographs (Klas, 2015). Crews did not comply and showed other legislators the photos in an attempt to gain more resources (Klas, 2015). Scott’s command to keep the photographs hidden, like his request that Ball resign, indicates his determination to hide horrific prison operations from sight.

Sequestering an Inability to Meet Inmates’ Physical Health Needs One of the most striking forms of corruption within prisons is inadequate physical health care for inmates. Often when a prison cannot meet inmates’ basic healthcare needs, both politicians and prison employees attempt to sequester disgusting practices. The Miami Herald (2015) conducted interviews with former prisoners from Florida’s prison for women, Lowell Correctional Institution (Lowell).

The women interviewed related experiences that involved prison employees sequestering negligence and malpractice. This problem is not unique to Florida; it happens in privatized prisons elsewhere in the U.S. Privatizing health care at Lowell has led to horrific circumstances for many prisoners, circumstances which prison employees attempt to hide. Corizon, the largest national for-profit provider of health services in prisons, holds a contract with Lowell. Kat Jones, a former Lowell inmate, told the Miami Herald about her experience with Corizon’s abuse (Michot, 2015). She sought medical attention because she was having difficulty breathing. Medics within the prison found that her EKG and blood pressure were abnormal. Rather than sending her to the hospital, doctors sent her to the infirmary where she was not treated; she had a serious virus that spread rapidly throughout the prison. Corizon sacrificed Jones’s and other prisoners’ well-being in the interest of saving money. Prison employees tried to conceal this injustice by forbidding Jones to tell anyone about it, including her family. Tanya Yelvington was also a victim of Corizon’s negligence.

Yelvington told the Miami Herald (2015) that she found a lump in her breast and sought medical attention. She informed doctors of her family’s history of breast cancer, but 14 months passed before they did a biopsy. By the time she got the biopsy, the lump had doubled in size and the cancer had spread. The only option was to do a double mastectomy. The surgery left her mutilated and caused an infection that nearly killed her. When Miami Herald asked the Warden at Lowell, Angela Gordon, about this story in an interview, she responded, “very few of [the claims] are actually found to be legitimate” (2015). With this comment, Gordon is attempting to sequester reality by implying that prisoners are not reliable sources of information.

The rhetoric that prisoners are untrustworthy serves to sequester the corruption that prisoners attempt to reveal when they recount their experiences. Gordon’s reaction to Yelvington’s frankly disgusting expe-

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rience with Corizon’s medical care is not an isolated instance. One Arizona prisoner, Regan Clarine, received pitiful health care from a private company. She was pregnant while incarcerated, and the prison denied her request for an ultrasound (Leonard and May, 2015). Clarine ended up getting a cesarean section in the hospital, but when she got back to the prison, her wound reopened. Prison guards refused to allow her to see a doctor for two weeks. When she did receive medical attention, her wound was treated with sugar (Leonard and May, 2015).

Using sugar as a form of antibiotics was common in the early 1900s, but is an outdated and dangerous practice (John Oliver, 2014). State Representative John Kavanagh—the man responsible for writing legislation that privatized Arizona’s prison health care—responded to Clarine’s account with disbelief and humor: “Prisoners have 24/7 to come up with allegations… I'm not saying that some of them can't have a basis in fact. But you’ve got to take them with a grain of salt, or in the case of the hospital, with maybe a grain of sugar” (Leonard and May, 2014). Representative Kavanagh, like Gordon, sequestered corruption in privatized prison health care when he refuted prisoners’ statements. He also sequestered and trivialized a serious issue by making a joke about Clarine’s experience. His denial and challenge to prisoner credibility is an attempt to conceal the truth.

Sequestering Human Rights Abuses Negligence in meeting physical health needs of inmates is not the only problem within Florida prisons; prison employees in Florida attempted to sequester guards’ human rights abuses against mentally ill inmates. Darren Rainey, a mentally ill patient at the Dade Correctional Institution, supposedly defecated in his cell and refused to clean it up (Brown, 2014). According to several prisoners, the guards subjected Rainey to a punishment often inflicted upon mentally ill patients: he was locked in a scalding shower (Brown, 2014). Rainey was found dead in the shower with his skin badly burned (Brown, 2014). An inspector general’s report validates prisoners’ stories, as prison cameras showed guards force Rainey into the shower that evening (Brown, 2014). Rainey’s death exposes a disastrous lack of guard training. Clearly, guards were not educated about how to respond to a mentally ill patient who would not cooperate with them. Not only did the guards allegedly murder Rainey, but there has been no serious investigation to hold anyone responsible. In fact, two years after the incident, an autopsy still had not been conducted and no one had been charged (Brown, 2014). The information that is available for investigation is suspiciously altered. The video camera that showed Rainey forced into the shower supposedly malfunctioned and was unable to capture what happened (Brown, 2014).

It remains unclear who tampered with the footage; if prison employees were the ones responsible for destroying the video, it would indicate that they attempted to sequester the reality of Rainey’s death by removing visual evidence. Not only was the videotape unavailable, but the redacted report fails to mention how or where Rainey’s body was found (Brown, 2014). Unfortunately, Rainey’s death may not have been an isolated event: one prisoner, Harold Hempstead, has filed numerous official complaints about the way guards treat mentally ill inmates.

Hempstead told Miami Herald reporters that guards routinely used physical abuse as a method to control inmates and even occasionally withheld food from inmates (Brown, 2014). None of Hempstead’s complaints were seriously addressed (Brown, 2014). The mishandling

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of Rainey’s death and the inaction in response to Hempstead’s complaints illustrate attempts to conceal corruption. Sequestering the torture of mentally ill people in prison is completely unacceptable. Prisons must be adequately funded and guards must be properly trained to respond appropriately to prisoner misconduct. Efforts to privatize prisons decrease state funding and create unsafe, potentially life-threatening environments.

Attempts to conceal sexual abuse in Florida’s prisons indicate a serious problem of privatization and defunding. A former prisoner described Lowell as “a predator’s playground,” due to the rampant sexual abuse guards perpetrate (Miami Herald, 2015). Sex between guards and inmates is primarily a form of trade for contraband; guards smuggle cigarettes, lipstick, and other prohibited goods into the prison in exchange for sexual favors from inmates. Most of this sexual abuse goes unreported because victims fear retaliation (Miami Herald, 2015). When the Miami Herald asked Warden Gordon about inappropriate guard behavior, she responded that there were “a few bad apples” but that disciplinary action against them was strict (2015). The Warden’s response attempts to sequester the extent of the problem. In fact, former Lowell sergeant, Berend Bergner, stated that at least 40% of guards were corrupt, and that the majority of his warnings and complaints about certain guards were ignored by upper management (Miami Herald, 2015). Just as was the case with Hempstead, failing to address reports of corruption becomes a form of sequestration and denial. One prisoner, Julie Vanduesen, explained that no amount of disciplinary action or even new staff would improve Lowell’s problem (Miami Herald, 2015). She stated that the only way true change would occur would be if “the feds” got involved (Miami Herald, 2015). The fact that the federal government is not closely monitoring Lowell creates the ideal environment for sequestration and corruption. Lack of government sight allows guards and other prison employees to sexually abuse inmates without being held responsible for such violations.

The corruption within privatized and defunded prisons is inhumane and appalling, which ideally would illicit a response of shock and pity according to Pachirat’s theory. Medical negligence, guards abusing mentally ill inmates, and guards sexually exploiting prisoners are abhorrent examples of the corruption that accompanies prison privatization.

Efforts to sequester privatization and corruption are widespread; Governor Scott and other Florida legislators sought to hide their plans for privatization, and prison employees, healthcare officials, and politicians actively worked to conceal the corrupt effects of privatization.

The Role of Increased Sight on Change In this section, I address the success of activism in increasing sight, holding private prisons accountable for corruption, and motivating political change. I provide three different cases of activism and the respective results. Increasing sight can protect prisoners, as it did in a 2010 Mississippi class-action lawsuit against a private prison. The court case in Mississippi contained prisoners’ emotionally charged stories, which likely had a stronger impact than the other examples I address. In Florida, media pressure and Michael Crews’ activism revealed corruption and motivated politicians to alter certain aspects of privatization, but legislators’ actions did not resolve many of the issues in privatized prisons. In fact, legislators’ pursuit of reform may be more symbolic than impactful. Despite continued activism in Arizona, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has not yet been able to catalyze significant change in privatized prisons. Increased sight can have a variety of results, and will likely encourage the most

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dramatic transformation when it evokes an acute emotional response.

While sight and recognition are often necessary for change to occur, they have not solved complex issues of privatization.

Increased sight of corruption occurring in a Mississippi private prison resulted in disgust and mobilization for change. This mobilization had a positive impact on prison conditions and prisoners’ lives, but it did not rectify all dangerous outcomes of privatization.

Youth imprisoned in Mississippi filed a class-action lawsuit against the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (WGYCF) and against GEO for unconstitutional conditions within the prison. WGYCF was a prison for boys and young men ages 13-22 who were tried and convicted in the adult criminal justice system (DePreist, 2010). Inmates suffered unimaginable physical and sexual assaults, arbitrary and unwarranted solitary confinement, and substandard health care among other injuries (DePreist, 2010). One boy's testimony about his traumatic experience in WGYCF reflects the power increased sight can have on an audience. The boy, referred to as J.D. to maintain his anonymity, was assigned a new cellmate who he was uncomfortable with (DePreist, 2010). He expressed his concerns to a prison officer immediately, but his sentiments were ignored. After a few days, his cellmate grew increasingly violent. Again, J.D. asked for help from a Unit Manager (DePreist, 2010). His request for safer accommodations went unheeded. A day after J.D.’s correspondence with the Unit Manager, his cellmate forced him to perform sexual acts and raped him (DePreist, 2010). Once his cellmate was asleep, J.D. waited for hours at his cell door with a note, hoping to attract the attention of an officer. An officer never passed by, and J.D.’s cellmate awoke. Infuriated by J.D.’s attempt to get help, his cellmate beat him until an officer opened the cell door to deliver food trays (DePreist, 2010). Stories like J.D.’s are so brutal and vivid that justices could not ignore GEO’s dangerous shortcomings. One justice stated that GEO and WGYCF had “allowed a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate” (Burnett, 2012). Increased sight into prisoners’ experiences in WGYCF and the intense emotional responses those stories elicited motivated the court to rule in the plaintiff 's favor. The settlement required WGYCF to relocate all inmates aged 17 and younger to a state-run facility (Fetsch et al., 2012). It also appointed independent monitors to hold the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) accountable to safety procedures (Fetsch et al., 2012). These measures improved conditions and protected minors but did not resolve all of the prison’s inadequacies. In subsequent years, WGYCF continued to struggle with violence and corruption.

MDOC terminated its contract with GEO only to cede control to a different private company. The prison finally closed in September 2016 after budget cuts made operations impossible (Williams, 2016).

Insight into WGYCF’s barbarism motivated the courts to take action against GEO to protect prisoners; while this action made a tangible difference, especially to minors, it did not close the prison or force private companies out of management. Increased sight and mobilization attempted to address WGYCF’s problems, but improvements were not instant and the outcome was not ideal.

Pressure from activists and the media worked to reveal corruption and contributed to Florida legislators’ goal to reform privatized state prisons. Michael Crews increased legislators’ sight by giving photos of dilapidated Florida prisons directly to legislators. Crews’ efforts were not isolated; pressure from the media also demanded that Florida officials take action to improve prison conditions. The Miami Herald conducted investigations about abuse in several of Florida’s privatized prisons and released video interviews with inmates as well as articles. In an episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver reiterated the Miami Herald’s findings. John Oliver highlighted corruption in privatized prisons nationwide, and mentioned Governor Scott specifically (2014). With roughly 4.6 million viewers each episode, and

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the video available on YouTube, Scott’s failed attempts at sequestration gained national attention (TV by the numbers, 2015). Increased sight of corruption led to pressure from the media and the general public. This pressure likely motivated Governor Scott and other Florida legislators to pursue prison reform. Prison reform bills in the 2015 legislative session died, but Governor Scott used his executive powers to mandate prison reform (Cordner, 2015). Scott’s executive order requires prisons to track “use of force” incidents, protects prison employees from retaliation if they report wrongdoing, and demands that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates inmate deaths (Cordner, 2015). In this case, increased sight has contributed to positive change in Florida’s prison system. However, Scott’s order does not resolve all the issues of privatization. There is still no independent oversight board that can conduct investigations, so companies in prisons remain largely unaccountable to the public.

The actual implications of Scott’s order are more symbolic than they are substantive.

The American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC) efforts to increase sight and accountability in Arizona privatized prisons have proven rather ineffective in producing change. AFSC is a Quaker organization committed to reforming the criminal justice system throughout the U.S.; it has been monitoring the rise of privatization in Arizona for 35 years (AFSC, 2012). AFSC grew frustrated with the lack of public conversation about privatization and sued the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) for failing to conduct reviews of private prisons. Law mandates these reviews, and the ADC had not reviewed prisons for 20 years (AFSC, 2012). AFSC won the lawsuit and was successful in forcing the ADC to publish a review. However, the review had several methodological problems and omitted key safety inspection data, producing an inaccurate representation (AFSC, 2012). The review also did not include six Arizona prisons that the Corrections Corporation of America operated because these prisons did not contract with the state (AFSC, 2012). So while AFSC tried to force government insight into prison operations, the results were not particularly effective in improving public sight, government accountability, or prison conditions. This is not the only instance in which the AFSC has tried to create change within Arizona prisons by increasing sight. AFSC has organized public events, met with the ADC, given public testimonies, and educated legislators about the negative consequences of privatization (AFSC, 2012). Despite this activism, AFSC has not been able to reach any of its goals; private prisons in Arizona are not subject to the same transparency, reporting, or oversight requirements as government agencies are. Arizona prison companies also do not have to make their records public. In Arizona, even with AFSC’s activism, private prisons continue to successfully sequester corruption, preventing a politics of sight from occurring.

Activism to increase sight and expose corruption within privatized prisons can facilitate reformation, but it does not always ensure progress. In the Mississippi court case, powerful, personal accounts of prison conditions impacted the judges in a way that caused them to hold GEO accountable for its corruption. The court’s ruling improved conditions and protected minors, but it did not end violence and corruption within WGYCF. Neither the media in Florida nor the ASFC dramatically changed prison privatization. Governor Scott’s Executive Order is impactful primarily in its symbolism and not in its practical effects. It does indicate that Scott will publicly acknowledge there is a problem with defunding and privatizing Florida’s prisons, which is an improvement compared to his previous sequestration. Unfortunately, AFSC has not been able to inspire significant change despite its valiant efforts. Increased sight has the potential to create political change, but that does not mean it always will.

Distancing

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Methods of distancing and ways of seeing complicate a politics of sight. Various distancing techniques dehumanize or ignore prisoners, allowing people to be unaware of, or indifferent toward, injustice prisoners may face. However, distancing can also involve increasing sight and treating prisoners with callous indifference. Physical, political, and linguistic distance hinder people from forming connections with prisoners and deter feelings of responsibility for their wellbeing.

Increasing sight is not necessarily enough to eliminate distance and public apathy; people must confront and change problematic ways of seeing and thinking about prisoners. Linguistic distancing, in the form of eliminating prisoners from discussions about privatization, allows people to focus on the economic aspects and ignore the human costs.

Prison rape jokes create a method of linguistic distancing that mocks victims of sexual assault and ultimately produces emotional passivity about prison rape. Physical distance between prisoners and the majority of the public inhibits people from seeing the way prisoners are treated, but proximity may not facilitate an emotional connection to prisoners. Political distancing, or preventing prisoners and previous felons from voting, reduces politicians’ accountability to prisoners.

These distances are conducive to apathy toward prisoners.

within prisons: “The jokes people tell in their homes lead to the prosecutor that’s not willing to take a case of rape in a prison, not willing to see the rape as a crime rather than part of a punishment” (Clark, 2009, para. 32). Prison rape jokes encourage a victim-blaming culture by subtly portraying prisoners as bad people that deserve to be violated.

One of The New York Post’s covers embodies the idea of prison rape being a part of punishment, rather than a crime. The cover featured a picture of Jared Fogel, former spokesman for Subway (Mandle, 2015).

Fogel pleaded guilty to charges of child pornography and as a result is serving time in federal prison. The New York Post reported on Fogel’s conviction, and its cover featured the headline, “Enjoy a foot long in jail” (Mandle, 2015, para. 3). This headline references Subway’s offer of a five-dollar foot long sandwich while making a smug reference to prison rape; it is a repulsive example of trivializing rape and verbally violating prisoners. This type of sexualized humor objectifies prisoners and mocks their pain, creating public apathy or emotional distance from prisoners. An appropriate response to prison rape is necessary to prevent rape and to respect the humanity of prisoners; visibility is not enough. The U.S. must address this problematic way of seeing to reduce public emotional distance from prisoners.

Lingustic and Emotional Distancing

Physical and Political Distancing

Focusing on the economic aspects of privatization creates distance in that it removes prisoners from the discussion of prison privatization.

After prisoners in Willacy County, Texas burned down a private prison, the county worried primarily about what it would do without its main source of revenue (Burnett, 2015). Joe Alexendre, former mayor of Raymondville in Willacy County, talks about the need to fill prisons: “It’s a business. And we’re gonna take all the advantage we can to bring in more business if possible” (Burnett, 2015, para. 8). His phrase “bring in more business” refers to incarcerating more people in order to make a profit. By failing to mention prisoners, Alexendre distances himself from the people who would pay the price for his county’s economic advancement. Rather than considering and seeking to address the issues that would motivate prisoners to burn the prison down, Alexendre worries about the monetary implications of the temporary prison relocation.

Alternately, prison rape jokes create linguistic and emotional distance from prisoners while increasing visibility and normalizing one of the most horrific violations prisoners face. Jokes about “dropping the soap” pervade popular culture; even children’s television shows and movies contain jokes about prison rape. Spongebob Squarepants, a children’s cartoon, makes reference to prison rape in one episode, as does the movie Puss in Boots, a DreamWorks Animation film (Meslow, 2015).

Many people defend jokes about prison rape, claiming that what someone says in jest should not be taken seriously. However, rape in prisons is a serious issue. According to a national inmate survey in 2012, about 4% of prisoners reported incidents of sexual victimization in the past year (Beck and Berzofsky, 2012). This may not seem like a significant statistic, but any amount of sexual violence is too much sexual violence and should not be dismissed.

Popular culture contributes to societal values as well as moral norms, and making prison rape a joke has real consequences (Meslow, 2015).

Jokes about prison rape create a sense of permissiveness and callousness about prisoners’ well being. These general attitudes perpetuate rape

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Physical distance from prisons limits the public’s sight of prisoner mistreatment. However, decreasing physical distance and increasing sight may not motivate the public to advocate for prisoners’ rights. In Utah, legislators are considering relocating the Draper prison (Canham, 2015). The proposal has received opposition from residents of neighborhoods in which the prison would potentially be placed (Price, 2014).

However, some people in Draper enjoy living near the prison. One woman living across the street from the prison describes her experiences with the increased sight that comes with proximity: “Over at the entrance, you can see people yanked out of the car, you can see people on the ground. It’s super fun” (Samore, 2015, para. 12). The fact that this woman finds entertainment in watching prisoners being mistreated is illustrative of Pachirat’s shock spiral conundrum. Instead of being horrified about cruelty toward prisoners, she revels in it. In this instance, increased sight does not motivate change, but it creates fascination.

Political distance, specifically the limitations on a prisoner’s right to vote, creates a lack of government accountability to prisoners. There is no federal mandate about whether or not prisoners may vote; the law varies by state. Most states have some form of restriction on the ability of prisoners to vote (“State criminal re-enfranchisement laws”).

There are only two states that allow incarcerated convicts to vote: Maine and Vermont. Florida has one of the harshest laws, permanently disenfranchising all people with felony convictions (“State criminal reenfranchisement laws”). The fact that felons cannot vote in Florida has real policy implications. Decreasing federal funding and increasing privatization—despite horrific consequences—reflects a lack of political accountability to people who were formerly convicted for a felony.

The population that is likely most passionate about prison reform is the population that has been incarcerated. Not granting a large portion of previous and current inmates the right to vote prevents them from exercising their political voices. Without the political input of people who were convicted for felonies, Florida’s politicians do not have much incentive to advocate for improving prison conditions. Political distanc-

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ing prevents many prisoners from being able to influence legislators or politically oppose privatization.

Physical distance between most of the public and prisons is an obstacle to sight, but living next to a prison does not necessarily result in sympathy for prisoners. Political distance, or disenfranchising prisoners, eliminates a prisoner’s constitutional right to vote and hold politicians accountable to his/her interests. Overlooking prisoners’ existence by focusing on the economic aspects of privatization or using humor to dehumanize them creates linguistic distance between the general public and prisoners. When privatization advocates and beneficiaries speak about prison as a business and fail to mention prisoners, they distance themselves from the impact privatization has on humans. While making jokes about prison rape does not ignore prisoners’ existence, it creates distance from prisoners in an equally harmful way. Prison rape jokes trivialize a real problem and sexualize as well as objectify prisoners. These forms of distancing each create emotional distance from and dehumanize prisoners.

Discussion Distancing in all its forms—physical, political, and linguistic—serves to create emotional apathy toward prisoners. These distancing tactics allow for corruption and sequestration to exist within prisons. In this way, prison privatization accurately reflects Pachirat’s theory of a politics of sight. Corruption within prisons can permanently alter a person’s life, as he/she has to live with the emotional and mental impacts of abuse. In extreme cases, like Darren Rainey, corruption can lead to inmates losing their lives. Corruption can also occur in prisons that are not privatized; however, privatization allows for more sequestration, as independent companies are not subject to the same regulation and scrutiny as federal and state governments are. The fact that companies were not held accountable for endangering Kat Jones, Tanya Yelvington, Regan Clarine, Darren Rainey, and countless other prisoners is inexcusable. The many individual prisoners that have suffered as a result of corruption suggests that privatization is not the answer to the U.S. problem of mass incarceration. Eliminating private companies from prisons is a warranted solution to problems of privatization.

However, another potential solution is to create independent oversight committees for prisons. Advocates of establishing oversight committees are significant to Pachirat’s theory because they assume a solution with increased sight. Forming independent committees could create a politics of sight and begin to ensure companies are responsible for corruption and sequestration.

Exposing corruption can have a variety of impacts depending on how it is exposed and in what context. J.D.’s story is especially powerful because it conjured the shock, horror, and pity that Pachirat theorizes is necessary to inspire transformation. J.D.’s story not only exposes what was wrong in WGYCF specifically, but it points to more widespread problems. Perhaps prison rape jokes and the passivity they tend to create contributed to officers’ inaction and failure to respond to J.D.’s requests. The public attitude that prison rape is part of the punishment, and not a crime, reveals the extent to which distancing tactics dehumanize prisoners. Reading J.D.’s story provides a nauseating reminder that prison rape is not funny, that prisoners are people, and that no human deserves to endure the real and horrific consequences that privatization can have. Increasing sight may not create immediate

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transformation within the U.S. prison system, but it is an essential step to improve prison conditions and end privatization.

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americas-prison-populat ion-2014-4 Fetsch, K., Jolly, R., & Schad, C. (2012, July 17). DePriest ex rel. C.B. v.

Walnut Grove Correctional Authority. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse website: https://www.clearinghouse.net/ detail.php?id=11974 Klas, M. E. (2015, February 28). The ‘cannibalizing’ of Florida’s prison system.

The Miami Herald. Retrieved March 9, 2016, from http://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article11533064.html Leonard, A., & May, A. (2014, May 28). Whistleblower: Arizona inmates are dying from inadequate health care. Al Jazeera. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2014/5/27/whistleblo wer-arizonainmatesaredyingfrominadequatehealthcare.html Mandle, C. (2015, August 21). The New York Post made a prison rape joke about Subway’s Jared Fogle. The Independent. Retrieved April 21, 2016, from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/the-new-york-postmade-a-prison-rape-joke- about-subways-jared-fogle-10464945.html Meslow, S. (2015, March 6). Why Hollywood needs to stop treating prison rape as a punchline.

The Week. Retrieved April 21, 2016, from http://theweek.com/articles/542707/ why-hollywood-needs-stop-treating-prison-rape-punc hline Miami Herald. (2015, December 13). Beyond punishment: Abuse and neglect in nation’s biggest women’s prison [Video file]. Retrieved from https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNfsgiJFZrY Michot, E. (2015, December 20). Beyond punishment: Former inmate describes widespread illness [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.miamiherald. com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article50759125.html Oliver, John. (2014, July 20). Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Prison [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pz3syET3DY Ortiz, E. (2013, June 19). ‘Sesame Street’ introduces first-ever muppet with a parent in prison.

The New York Daily News. Retrieved March 9, 2016, from http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/sesame-street-introduces-muppetdad-jail-article-1.1376845 Pachirat, T. (2011). Every twelve seconds: Industrialized slaughter and the politics of sight. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Price, M. L. (2014, December 22). About 100 people protest Utah prison relocation sites.

Corrections One. Retrieved April 21, 2016, from http://www.correctionsone. com/corrections/articles/8020215-About-100-people-protest- Utahprison-relocation-sites/ Samore, P. (2015, July 16). Bluffdale residents call prison good neighbor, ask other cities to take it. KSL News. Retrieved April 21, 2016, from http:// www.ksl.com/?sid=35523831&nid=148 State criminal re-enfranchisement laws. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2016, from American Civil Liberties Union website: https://www.aclu.org/map/state-criminal-re-enfranchisement-laws-map TV by the numbers. (2015, July 7). HBO series hit record highs in multiplatform viewers. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from http://tvbythenumbers. zap2it.com/2015/07/07/hbo-series-hit-record-highs-in-multiplatfor m-viewers/428025/ Williams, T. (2016, September 15). Privately run Mississippi prison, called a scene of horror, is shut down. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/us/ mississippi-closes-private-prison-walnut-grove.html?_r=0

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Ellie Fuller

HIDDEN VALUES: AMERICAN INDIAN EPISTEMOLOGIES IN FEDERAL LAND MANAGEMENT

Olivia Juarez

Hidden Values: American Indian Epistemologies in Federal Land Management

By Olivia Juarez University of Utah

As of December 28, 2016, Bears Ears National Monument provides federal protection to 1.35 million acres of public land in southeastern Utah via the 1906 Antiquities Act. A coalition of five sovereign tribal nations designated as the Bears Ears Commission collaboratively manages the monument’s cultural and environmental resources alongside three U.S. land management agencies. Collaborative Management strategy will jointly preserve traditional American Indian cultural practices, recreational land uses, and existing developmental plans within the monument, making this space unlike any other monument that has existed before. Before Bears Ears National Monument, Antiquities Act rhetoric privileged Euro-Western epistemological values and has historically excluded American Indian epistemologies from having significant influence over federal legal rhetoric. The Bears Ears National Monument Collaborative Management strategy will include American Indian epistemologies within federal land management protocol for the first time. This paper analyzes how the two ways of knowing will intermingle and ultimately produce a synthesis of American Indian and Euro-Western epistemologies in federal land management practices.

Keywords: oral histories, epistemologies, federal land management

Introduction Six years of silencing. Six years of marginalization. Six years of exclusion. This is the story of sovereign tribal nations’ encounter against regional U.S. government bodies in the Four Corners area. Since 2010, local tribal governments sought out public lands protection in the Bears Ears region of Southern Utah from state Congress and local San Juan County government to no avail (Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, 2015). From this adversity, five tribal nations—Hopi, Navajo, Uintah and Ouray Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Zuni—unified as the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and took their story to the White House where the U.S. nation finally offered listening ears. On December 28, 2016, the federal government heeded the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition’s call for a national monument in Southeastern Utah, and designated Bears Ears National Monument (BENM). The revered Bears Ears buttes and surrounding land are home to more than 100,000 known American Indian cultural properties, innumerable sites considered sacred to many Tribes, and cultural properties remaining from Southern Utah’s first pioneers who settled the local town of Bluff. The area is also a major asset to recreationists throughout the Western U.S. Unmatched opportunities for fishing, camping, and hiking, amid an array of artistic vistas, thrive in Bears Ears. Over a thousand robust and delicate species are at home in the Bears Ears environment and nowhere else. Unique to this national monument is the authoritative role of the Bears Ears Commission. Formed from the five Tribes of the Inter-Tribal Coalition, former President Barack Obama’s Presidential Proclamation—Establishment of the Bears Ears National Monument appoints the Commission “to provide guidance and recommendations on the development and implementation of management plans and on management of the monument” alongside federal public lands

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management agencies. For the first time, Tribes have an established seat at the table to manage ancestral protected lands—a major development from historical adversities.

Federal violence against tribal nations in the Bears Ears region began as early as the 1850s, when settlers started to homestead the West. This history is specifically invoked in the Inter-Tribal Coalition’s “Proposal to President Barack Obama for the Creation of Bears Ears National Monument” (2015). The Coalition reminds the president that when the federal government forced Navajos to leave their home in the Bears Ears region, the “U.S. cavalry rounded up 8,000 Navajos and forcemarched them on the Long Walk to brutal confinement at Bosque Redondo in New Mexico” (p. 11). The consequent Navajo reservations, created after dismissal of the Navajos from Bosque Redondo, did not include the Bears Ears landscape. Despite generations of separation from the Bears Ears homeland, Tribes returned to access the land and continue traditions such as gathering herbs for medicine and ceremony, fishing, deer and elk hunting, foraging for food, and firewood gathering. These traditional practices are older than any tribal memory, and are integral to many Tribes’ livelihood. Ruple, Keiter, and Ognibene (2016) affirm that before national monument designation, traditional tribal land uses were at risk of prohibition from opposing land management legislation (p. 14). The successful BENM designation protects these traditional land uses and codifies them into land management criterion.

In addition to preserving the traditional cultural activities listed above, the BENM designation protects more than 100,000 archaeological sites and protects native wildlife, wilderness spaces, scenic vistas, and historical sites of spiritual significance (pp. 36, 37). As such, the Bears Ears Commission will work alongside federal land management agencies to “inform decisions regarding the management of the

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monument” (Presidential Proclamation, 2016) to imbue traditional land management strategies into national monument management.

Significant epistemological goals set by the Coalition in their “Executive Summary” (2015) supplement this federally appointed protection.

The Coalition has a remarkable objective of integrating “Traditional Knowledge into the monument’s land management practices and the creation of a world-class Bears Ears Traditional Knowledge Institute, where experts and lay people alike can learn from the rich intersection of Western and traditional Native views.”

This epistemological objective is reflected in sacred spaces included in the original proposed monument area—specifically, the San Juan and Colorado River Confluence. Collaborative management protocol also reifies Traditional Knowledge, which I will explain later. Utah Diné Bikéyah, a non-profit organization developed by supporting members of the Inter-Tribal Coalition, offer two important facts about the San Juan and Colorado River Confluence at the original monument area’s southwest edge (2016). According to Utah Diné Bikéyah staff member Isobel Lingenfelter, the Diné Nation, or Navajo, remember this area as the place of their people’s emergence from the earth into humankind; second, that this area is uniquely remote in Utah. The archeological value of the site is unconfirmed, but the confluence has extreme importance according to tribal values.

Ways of Knowing: Oral Stories and Oral Histories The Diné maintain the history of the confluence as a place of emergence through the oral stories tradition. Oral stories transmit historical accounts though word, typically from the memory of an elder to a younger audience. Oral stories are a unique medium unlike conventional contemporary literacy media. Information embodied in oral stories is not codified in writing, but in the identity of individuals who retain this knowledge, and ultimately their community and culture.

Therefore, oral stories are foundational bricks in the edifice of cultural identity. Oral stories are a critical element to American Indian epistemologies and pedagogies, or American Indian ways of knowing and ways of learning.

Navajos and many American Indian tribal nations deem specific places as sacred or otherwise significant based on information found in oral stories. According to Harris Francis and Klara Kelley in their book Navajo Sacred Places (1994), these places anchor the ways of Navajo life, the stories about the origins, and correct pursuit of those ways. The stories that go with these places, and with the mortals and immortals who have come together there, are a large part of Navajo chronicles of the origin and evolution of the Navajo world, people, and customs. These chronicles are Navajo “history” as Navajos themselves have told it from older to younger, first by word of mouth, now also in writing. (p. 2) Places like the mountains aren’t simply environments within tribal thought. Similarly, objects within an environment are not just things but subjects embodied by all oral stories associated with the referent places and subjects. Places in tribal epistemologies are characterized by the memories of people who inhabited the place before. Mountains, desert plateaus, creeks, rock formations, ancient dwellings, and biotic life alike in the Bears Ears region are defined by what they are now and what they were before. Oral stories preserve culturally significant information and philosophies, which deem land both sacred and

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animated by the past.

Harris and Francis (1994) point out that oral stories are inherently valuable by virtue of their embodied medium. The prerequisite to an oral story is the memory of past events, places, and stories inherited from orators before, held in a person’s working knowledge. As such, oral stories are marked with a significance untranslatable into recorded mediums. Oral stories are only reproduced from orator to audience when the orator has a special relationship with their audience—a relationship in which the orator consents to deliver their histories to a specific audience. This evidences oral stories as a medium necessary to the traditional integrity of tribal epistemologies. Notwithstanding recorded mediums for historical inquiry, oral stories are legitimate knowledge sources critical to American Indian cultural pedagogies and epistemologies. In accordance with tribal epistemologies, oral stories maintained by tribal members are of equal historical significance as written, visual, and audio historical accounts. Orators consider many factors before oral stories are reproduced, especially for creating recorded histories, such as those found in Navajo Sacred Places (1994).

The Oral History Association (2016) states that oral stories become oral histories when the stories are recorded in a visual and/or audio medium for the purpose of documenting memories and personal commentaries of historical significance. Before American Indian oral histories are recorded, deliberate consideration of who the information is being shared with, the place it is told, and the time in which the story is retold is necessary. One orator in Navajo Sacred Places (1994) is sure to acknowledge, “when I learned [the stories] I was told to keep them to myself until a year before I die. At that time I can give them to one of my grandsons. I cannot tell them to a white man” (p. 64).

Another orator interjects amid an oral history recording that a more appropriate place to reproduce his story would be in a sweathouse (p.

68). These rules regarding the reproduction of oral stories indicates that a Navajo ethic-of-conduct is firmly encoded around the production of oral histories—that is, recorded oral histories may only be accessible to specific people even in their recorded form, just as oral stories are only shared with specific audiences.

This moral framework distinguishes American Indian epistemologies from Euro-Western epistemologies dominant in the U.S. It is important to investigate the disparities between American Indian and Euro-Western epistemologies because the BENM proposal situates American Indian beliefs, values, and pedagogical traditions within a succinctly Euro-Western context: the U.S. federal governance system.

Some conflicting beliefs about knowledge itself are at the foundation of divergence in American Indian and Euro-Western thinking.

Brian Yazzie Burkhart in “What Coyote and Thales Can Teach Us: An Outline of American Indian Epistemology” (2004), points out that Euro-Western views “disallow the notion that there is some knowledge we should not have” (p. 18). This view contrasts the codes of conduct identified by Kelley and Francis (1994) that stories should not be told to some people and that people should not go to some places (p. 70).

Native American epistemologies are bound to degrees of access—only certain people, if any, are allowed to acquire certain knowledge. EuroWestern epistemology differs greatly. According to Euro-Western epistemology, all knowledge should be able to be uncovered by anybody.

Whereas Euro-Western epistemologies prioritize propositional knowledge, which is situated in rationale and justification, American Indian epistemologies are molded by non-propositional knowledge gained

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HIDDEN VALUES: AMERICAN INDIAN EPISTEMOLOGIES IN FEDERAL LAND MANAGEMENT

Olivia Juarez

through experience. Burkhart (2004) argues that Euro-Western epis- lithic scatters, and ancient dwellings. temologies reject non-propositional knowledge as an authoritative It is apparent that oral stories are a formative component of Native epistemic worldview (p. 19). This undermines the authority of non- American identity, ways of learning, and ways of thinking. This epistemic propositional knowledge valued in American Indian cultures. standpoint is fundamentally contrary to the dominant epistemic In Euro-Western thought, justification of any claim is equivalent to worldview, but new educational methodologies (Mower, 2014) are evidence. Justification establishes a claim as knowledge—knowledge already beginning to reconcile the differences. Bears Ears National is only knowledge when some authoritative source justifies it, or if the Monument is founded upon principles which will bring together knowledge is self-justifying (p. 20). In Euro-Western knowledge systems, Euro-Western and American Indian beliefs and values. it’s widely unacceptable for a justification such as, “because that’s how I argue that BENM will substantiate American Indian epistemologies things are,” to stand as a self-sufficient claim to knowledge, especially as authoritative knowledge sources within federal land management in formal academic or government institutions. But in American Indian protocol. The Antiquities Act is entrenched in Euro-Western epistemolknowledge systems, that is sometimes the only appropriate claim to ogy and excludes a significant American Indian epistemological tradiknowledge—especially in matters of sacred places and ancient histories. tion: oral stories. As the Bears Ears Commission and U.S. public land Another Navajo orator in Navajo Sacred Places (1994) frequently management agencies co-manage BENM through Collaborative reminds the authors, “because that’s how things are,” reflecting the Management protocol, American Indian and Euro-Western epistenon-propositional knowledge translated in oral histories (p. 68). mologies will synthesize to create a land management criterion that Since Euro-Western knowledge systems do not accept such non- actively includes tribal epistemologies and traditions. To show this, I propositional claims to knowledge, formal U.S. institutions delegitimize will first examine the Antiquities Act. Then, I will analyze the monuAmerican Indian epistemologies. Thus, an interesting tension arises ment’s collaborative management strategy, before finally considering in the 1906 Antiquities Act and U.S. land management agencies, for how Euro-Western and American Indian epistemologies may inform they both seek to protect sacred American Indian sites yet they do not each other in this unique land management protocol. recognize the value of American Indian epistemologies, specifically oral stories. This has already resulted in the exclusion of proposed The Antiquities Act BENM areas deemed sacred from oral stories from the final BENM area designation.

The 1906 Antiquities Act delegates power from U.S. Congress to the Due to the prevalence of written knowledge throughout modernity, president to declare national monuments. Specific criteria must be Euro-Western epistemologies generally don’t have significant knowl- met in order for sites to be protected by the Antiquities Act, namely, edge coded in oral stories. If they do, it does not match the value and “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other significance that oral stories afford to American Indian epistemologies. objects of historic or scientific interest” (American Antiquities Act of Euro-Western thinkers in this dominant worldview maintain that 1906, 16 U.S.C. §§ 431-433). Significantly, the “scientific interest” stanknowledge is meaningful if and only if it is empirically verifiable by dard is required to confine the monument- area “to the smallest area justification. Throughout modernity, oral stories have been excluded compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be in what counts as empirical data—Euro-Western epistemologies equate protected” (my emphasis). The San Juan and Colorado River Confluoral stories to anecdotes, which do not maintain the scientific value ence was included in the original 1.9 million acre BENM proposal and legitimacy of empirically measureable recorded data, such as oral (Inter-Tribal Coalition, 2015) for its cultural and spiritual significance histories. However, it is possible for Euro-Western epistemologies to tied to Diné stories of creation. As such, the Antiquities Act limitation integrate the value of oral stories and non-propositional knowledge to protection of objects is problematic for Tribes. The White House into its own epistemologies. Some current educational curriculums ultimately cut the confluence out of the final BENM land area designaare mending this epistemological gap in the dominant knowledge tion, according to Utah Diné Bikéyah Executive Director Gavin Noyes system.

(G. Noyes, personal communication, 06 March 2017). Noyes states it DeeDee Mower in “The Rose Creek Oral History Project” (2014), is unclear why the confluence was removed from the proposed area, incorporates local oral stories into her third-grade social studies cur- but it’s worth noting that the presidential proclamation establishing riculum to emphasize histories excluded from the dominant narrative BENM (2016) states that traditional knowledge is a resource to be reinforced by history texts. This methodology makes room for counter protected in this monument, “which would include stories similar to narratives and exemplifies how oral stories can offer significant value those that exist for the confluence.” As such, it is clear that the Antiqto Euro-Western sciences and history (p. 121). By recording and uities Act is an epistemological double-edged sword. The legislation transcribing oral stories, Mower’s “Oral History Project” turns unre- makes it possible for cultural properties and practices to be preserved, corded historical accounts into oral histories. These oral histories yet it is heavily reliant on an object-based value system. In spite of its empirically communicate vast historical knowledge and culturally power to preserve indigenous practices, the Antiquities Act privileges significant information thus making non-propositional knowledge Eurocentric epistemologies and excludes American Indian values accessible to epistemologies rooted in propositional knowledge. Since because they are in the form of oral story. Despite this setback, the Burkhart (2004) claims that any knowledge that isn’t empirically jus- Bears Ears Commission’s novel role in managing BENM can steer tifiable is invalid in Euro-Western epistemology, the ability to transform federal legal rhetoric toward including American Indian values and oral stories into oral histories can help Euro-Western thinkers appre- ways of knowing. ciate the cultural and historical significance embodied in Native The specification of “objects of scientific or historic interest” in the American oral stories alongside artifacts such as recorded histories, Antiquities Act reflects disciplinary rhetoric specific to the empirical

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The Hinckley Journal of Politics

nature of archaeology. Larry J. Zimmerman (2002), in the article “Archeology, Reburial, and the Tactics of a Discipline’s Self-Delusion,” argues that the discipline of archaeology has historically colonized American Indian artifacts so as to limit their worth to the value objects can afford scientific inquiry. According to Zimmerman, the Society for American Archaeology implies that, “Indians never cared about their pasts before” (p. 41). Zimmerman then continues, “One wonders why archaeologists fail to accord importance to oral history, song, and ritual as ways of caring about the past” (p. 41). I contend this is because the epistemic traditions apparent in Euro-Western thinking only value that which is verifiable by scientific measurement. Zimmerman contends that the values of archaeology “divest Indians of their past. The idea that the distant past cannot be known except by archaeological methods strips Indian peoples of an important aspect of identity” (pp.

41-42). The River Confluence removed from the national monument area is one consequence of the object-oriented Antiquities Act. The requirement of a monument area to have empirical, objective “interest” according to the Antiquities Act prohibits acknowledging American Indian epistemological values. Specifically, the value that oral stories afford to place.

From the Antiquities Act arises a peculiar tension in which this federal legislation can protect ancient American Indian cultural properties, while the Act simultaneously operates within a Euro-Western epistemological framework. This framework does not recognize American Indian epistemologies in their subjective form, the form of oral stories, which valorize non-prepositional forms of knowing and learning. The act further entrenches a form of scientific colonialism onto American Indian epistemic tradition. For example, the presidential proclamation of BENM (2016) states that the historical and traditional ecological knowledge amassed by Native Americans of the region, “is, itself, a resource to be protected and used in understanding and managing this landscape sustainably for generations to come.” This statement by the president is wholly important for the advancement of American Indian epistemologies in land management. It recognizes the credibility and authority tribal nations should have in managing ancient ancestral public lands, which the local Four Corners area county governments denied to the Tribes for decades. Yet, this double edge sword also works to objectify American Indian knowledge, so federal land management agencies can use the knowledge “in understanding and managing this landscape sustainably for generations to come.” This positive and probably necessary step can bring American Indian and Euro-Western epistemologies into mutual understanding.

However, it must be ruled and guided by the Bears Ears Commission to safeguard American Indian ethics-of-conduct regarding knowledge access.

The interpretation of “scientific interest” in the Antiquities Act has been widely construed throughout the history of national monument designations. For example, Joseph A. Tainter and G. John Lucas (1983), in “Epistemology of the Significance Concept,” argue “scientific interest” is approximate to having significance by definition. The authors assert that the definitions of significance solely include artifacts and places filled with content “observable and recordable in much the same way as its dimensions, condition and content” (p. 711). This “empiricistpositivist view” suggests that “all claims to knowledge that pertain to empirical reality must be either direct reports of experience or observation . . . Thus, significance, in the empiricist-positivist view, will be

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present in a cultural property, rather than in the mind of the observer” (p. 712). That is to say, something is only significant if its qualities are inherently observable in the object itself. In this view, these qualities cannot exist in the observer’s mind in form of memory or oral history.

Tainter and Lucas (1983) show that areas in consideration for protection through the Antiquities Act must have some empirical criterion in order to be included in the national monument. Places and objects must be measurable in empirical standards widely available to the Western sciences—archaeology, geology, geography, anthropology, etc.

This explicitly excludes oral stories and the cultural and historical data they embody. Through this lens, the import ancient memories and histories bear to a place is meaningless without physical evidence to the Euro-Western eye. Such empiricism is problematic to Tribes since American Indian epistemologies are not based in empirical data, but in non-propositional knowledge with the recognition that there are some things that we should not know. The San Juan and Colorado River Confluence is sacred to many Native Americans, especially the Navajo, for its historical value apparent in the form of oral stories, not in tangible items.

Tainter and Lucas point out that “Significance, rather, is a quality that we assign to a cultural resource based on the theoretical framework within which we happen to be thinking” (1983, p. 714). In the case of the Antiquities Act, the theoretical framework is in Eurocentric terms, rooted in objectivism and empiricism. The Collaborative Management principles in BENM remedy this cultural epistemic monopoly: they provide a context in which monument designation can be multi-cultural and inclusive. Tainter and Lucas state, “A truly definitive evaluation of the contemporary significance of a cultural property would require consultation with all potentially knowledgeable persons” (p. 715). The Bears Ears Commission can thoroughly fulfill such consultation should the federal government heed their cultural expertise. These monument leaders are the beholders of American Indian epistemologies and pedagogies necessary to steward the region. Their knowledge is of even greater importance to preserving antiquities remembered in oral story.

In the history of all national monuments, only one other national monument integrates minimal guidance from a nearby Tribe with a cultural stake in the monument (Ranchod, 2001). Whereas BENM has a formal president-designated tribal commission steering monument management alongside federal agencies, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument operates with a memorandum of understanding between the neighboring tribal reservation Pueblo de Cochiti reservation and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for managing this monument (pp. 566). BENM is the first of its kind that explicitly recognizes that tribal epistemologies are crucial for monument management and land stewardship. The Commission’s leadership in land management alongside federal land management agencies could mitigate future cases of cultural epistemic exclusion so antiquities remembered in oral story may be protected with the same import of objects and historical places according to Euro-Western thought.

It’s apparent that rhetoric in the Antiquities Act imposes a EuroWestern epistemological monopoly on evaluating the cultural significance of tribal homelands in the West. Nevertheless, the 1906 legislation is a crucial tool for federally protecting American Indian cultural properties on public lands. Cultural values embodied in BENM are causing the Antiquities Act to adapt so U.S. public land management agencies include American Indian epistemologies in land protection

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HIDDEN VALUES: AMERICAN INDIAN EPISTEMOLOGIES IN FEDERAL LAND MANAGEMENT

criteria. However, sites remembered in oral stories such as the San Juan-Colorado River Confluence are a step away from meeting the empirical criterion for protection valued in the Antiquities Act. Oral stories are significant cultural artifacts upon which Native American identity rests. The federal government must evaluate the meanings offered in the Antiquities Act in accordance with how indigenous groups would interpret key artifacts, as interpreted by tribal national representatives, scholars, elders, and other inter-tribal authorities.

Collaborative Management The presidential proclamation establishing BENM integrated the innovative Collaborative Management strategy proposed by the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition (2015). This strategy calls for a five-member Bears Ears Commission representing all five tribal governments of the Inter-Tribal Coalition to direct the monument alongside the BLM, the U.S. National Park Service, and the U.S. Forest Service.

According to the Coalition, Collaborative Management does mean that President Obama is delegating some authority over the public lands to the Tribes, but it is not a delegation of complete authority: the Tribes and agency officials will be working together as equals to make joint decisions. (p. 26) The Coalition declares that this working partnership in monument management would “honor the worldviews of our ancestors, and Tribes today, and their relationships with this landscape” (p. 2).

David Gruenewald’s (2003) theoretical framework in “The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place” offers a foundation for understanding the decolonizing implications of collaborative management in BENM. Decolonization means “unlearning much of what dominant culture and schooling teaches, and learning more socially just and ecologically sustainable ways of being in the world” (p. 9).

Euro-Western epistemologies teach that only objects are valuable to science, but American Indian epistemologies and oral stories encompass a greater import to non-objective ways of thinking about the world. Euro-Western epistemology has a monopoly on Antiquities Act rhetoric, and this must be interrogated to recognize tribal ways of knowing and being. Applying Gruenewald’s pedagogy of place to Collaborative Management can “address the specificities of the experiences, problems, languages, and histories that [American Indian] communities rely upon to construct a narrative of collective identity and possible transformation” (2003, p. 9). The Inter-Tribal Coalition contends that over 33 Tribes and pueblos have cultural ties to Bears Ears. Their cultural epistemologies and oral stories are inherently place-based and can offer significant insight to westerners. American Indian epistemologies and Euro-Western epistemologies will closely interact and eventually coalesce in BENM land management practices.

Importantly, “Bowers (2001) points out, decolonization as an act of resistance must not be limited to rejecting and transforming dominant ideas; it also depends on recovering and renewing traditional, noncommodified cultural patterns such as mentoring and intergenerational relationships” (Greunewald, 2003, p. 9). These cultural patterns—tribal knowledge, stewardship ethics, and generational beliefs—are being codified for BENM land management practices by the Bears Ears Commission. The Bears Ears Traditional Knowledge Institute can inform U.S. land management agencies of the various tribal knowledge

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Olivia Juarez

sources previously ignored by Euro-Western thinkers and may ultimately integrate American Indian epistemologies into federal land management rhetoric. While the presidential proclamation does not designate an Institute, the Bear Ears Commission is in its first stages of developing the Institute with support from Utah Diné Bikéyah and partnering organizations (G. Noyes, personal communication, 27 March 2017). Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer states (2016) that the Institute “offers an opportunity for powerful synergy between science and traditional knowledge, in service to the land which sustains us all.” This institute can integrate American Indian traditional knowledge, “a philosophy and practice, embedded in the indigenous worldview which guides right relationships between humans and the living world through the principles of respect, reciprocity, relationship and reverence” into the overall BENM management criteria. This culturally significant resource and its mediums, such as oral stories, keep the past (ancestors) alive in present day-to-day contexts of indigenous peoples and therefore make Bears Ears inclusive to traditional indigenous lifestyles.

Absent of monument designation, Bears Ears is devoid of preservation resources such as rangers. The Coalition proposes to remedy this by employing a diverse management team including professionals with traditional American Indian values and knowledge, Western science backgrounds, and public land management knowledge to be overseen by the federal-tribal commission (2015, p. 31). Through Collaborative Management, this commission codifies American Indian traditional land management alongside federal land management protocol. A unique, innovative context exists in which Tribal heritage, BLM values, national park traditions, and epistemologies can inform each other and better serve the land and all of its stakeholders. Current protections for BENM include improved off-road vehicle use, educational infrastructure to inform the public of responsible recreation practices, and safeguards for the biota and integrity of cultural sites.

A landmark stipulation of the monument’s land management protocol includes a novel multiple-use doctrine that would honor current extractive and ranching permits and cap future permits. In other words, energy development, mining, and cattle grazing permits already granted in the area may continue in BENM, but further development would be restricted. Significantly, the Coalition ensures that hunting, fishing, herb and firewood gathering, and other traditional American Indian practices will continue to be permitted and in some cases even encouraged as part of land management protocol (pp. 36, 37). Some BENM opponents voiced their worries in Sutherland Institute videos that monument designation will prohibit American Indians from gathering medicine, piñon, and firewood, and that they’ll have to pay to get into the area. However, the monument proclamation specifically permits Tribe members access for traditional land uses, including “collection of medicines, berries and other vegetation, forest products, and firewood.” As such, Tribe members do not have to pay to continue practicing cultural traditions in the area as contended. BENM incorporates land management practices that honor economic development stakeholders, Tribes, local residents, and recreational visitors.

BENM is not the first national monument to stand apart from previous Antiquities Act-designated monuments. In The Clinton National Monuments: Protecting Ecosystems with the Antiquities Act, Sanjay Ranchod (2001) demonstrates that monuments declared under the Clinton administration expanded to include protection of natural ecosystems and anthropological ecosystems (pp. 537, 570). A majority

The Hinckley Journal of Politics

of the Clinton-era monuments are large, historically or scientifically significant ecosystems (p. 538); they are national monuments for both their scientific value and by virtue of their extraordinary beauty (p. 569). Clinton’s monuments set a precedent in which national monuments protect land for non-archaeological merits. BENM expands the Antiquities Act term, scientific interest, beyond archaeology, geology, anthropology, etc. disciplines to include the humanities by recognizing the importance of places significant in oral story. Burkhart (2004) explains that science, religion, and philosophy in American Indian epistemologies are not separate like they are in Euro-Western thought but are intrinsically bound (p. 22). Land management innovation in Bears Ears can catalyze such a synthesis between Euro-Western and Tribal perspectives.

Other precedents of land management change include the 1996 Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument dedication, which was the first to extend land management duties away from the National Park Service to the BLM. Ranchod also points to the 2001 Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument dedication, in which Clinton directed the BLM to manage the monument “in close cooperation with the Pueblo de Cochiti, an adjacent Native American reservation” (p. 566). In many instances, “traditional uses like hunting were thought by the Clinton Administration to be compatible with good wildlife management and protection of diverse ecosystems [in monuments]” (p. 572). Clinton-era monuments implied that traditional land use and environmental stewardship are intrinsic to each other in American Indian epistemology and that this is beneficial for all who can access the land. Collaborative Management principles explicitly integrate tribal land uses into BENM code, making way for American Indian traditions and epistemologies to have a significant role in federal land management protocol. BENM’s explicit codification of cultural-land management traditions via the Antiquities Act is an unprecedented act of respect to American Indian ways of life. Still, not much has set precedent for oral stories to carry significant weight in the Antiquities Act. Epistemic Compromise Oral histories allow listeners and readers to access valuable cultural connections to the past, especially place-based connections. Specific places and environments are integral to the information encoded in oral stories. The Diné story of emergence at the river confluence is not only important because it helps Navajos connect to their genesis, but also because it can be located to a specific place nearby local residents. The ontological security of the Diné and many tribal nations is inherently place-based at the River Confluence.

Codifying oral stories into oral histories can bridge American Indian thinkers and Euro-Western thought systems, helping them to reach mutual understanding. This entails changes in epistemological authority structures in order to situate the cultures on common ground. Simply put, Euro-Western thought systems would no longer have a monopoly on ways of knowing and ways of learning regarding land management. For a successful power transition, compromise and cultural sensitivity will be required from the federal government and Tribes. The developing Bears Ears Traditional Knowledge Institute could facilitate this process and serve as a space for the cultural epistemologies, research methodologies, and land management traditions to interact between all stakeholders in BENM. First, Tribal Nations must concede that oral stories may need to be made comprehensible to U.S. land management agencies to fully protect areas remembered in oral stories, such as the River Confluence, which was excluded from the original 1.9-million-acre monument proposal. This could be done through recording and translating the stories, at the complete discretion of tribal authorities. I recognize that this could be an act of epistemic colonization because American Indian epistemologies should be able to exist as legitimate in their own right, and they should be able to exist in their subjective form as they have historically. However, for U.S.

2017

legal rhetoric to work in favor of Tribes, this is probably a necessary epistemic transition that must occur to protect places similar to the River Confluence under the Antiquities Act. Importantly, U.S. government officials and employees must concede that American Indian epistemologies and pedagogies are, and have always been, intrinsically legitimate and verifiable. They can do this through education in the humanities and social sciences. Further, thinkers of the Euro-Western tradition must respect and honor the codes of ethics that Tribal leaders may impose around access to information contained in oral histories. Such a cross-cultural methodology would corroborate American Indian epistemologies as forms of knowledge recognizable in the framework of U.S. federal institutions.

The designation of BENM has at last monumentalized Tribal histories and American Indian epistemologies within U.S. legislation. Beneath all beliefs and practices held by American Indians and Americans of all cultures rests common values: security to the pursuit of happiness, having a place to call home, and honoring your heritage. These values are at the heart of BENM. Collaborative Management affirms these shared principles and makes way to integrate American Indian epistemologies into federal land management purview.

References American Antiquities Act of 1906, 16 U.S.C. §§ 431-433. Retrieved from https://www. nps.gov/ history/local-law/anti1906.htm Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. (2015, Oct 15). Executive Summary. Retrieved from http:// www.bearsearscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ ExecutiveSummaryBearsEarsProposal.pdf Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. (2015, Oct 15). Proposal to President Barak Obama for the Creation of Bears Ears National Monument. Retrieved from http://www. bearsearscoalition.org/ wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Bears-Ears-Inter-TribalCoalition-Proposal-10-15-15.pdf Sutherland Institute. (2016, May 17). A Bright Future or Another Broken Promise? Retrieved from https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=h56Zb3uLUSM. Burkhart, B. Y. (2004). What Coyote and Thales Can Teach Us: An Outline of American Indian Epistemology. In A. Waters (Ed.), American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays (pp. 15-26). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Gruenewald, D. A. (2003). The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place.

Educational Researcher, 32(4). Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com. ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/toc/edra/ 32/4 Kelley, K. B., & Francis, H. (1994). Navajo Sacred Places. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall (2016). Renewing Relationship Between Land and Culture.

Bears Ears Coalition. Retrieved from https://bearsearscoalition.org/traditionalknowledge-and-bears-ears/ Mellen, R. (2015, Oct 16). Utah Tribes Seek Monument Designation For Bears Ears, But Congress May Not Like That. Huffington Post. Retrieved from www. huf f ingtonp ost.com/ ent r y/b e ars-e ars-nat iona l-monument_ us_56214ffae4b08589ef47609d.

Mower, D. (2014). The Rose Creek Oral History Project: Elementary Cross-Grade Social Studies Curriculum in Review. In J. Flores, & K. V. Luschen (Eds.), Crafting Critical Stories: Toward Pedagogies and Methodologies of Collaboration, Inclusion, and Voice (pp. 115-130). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing.

Oral History Association. (2016). Oral History: Defined. Retrieved from http:// www. oralhistory.org/about/do-oral-history/ Presidential Proclamation. (2016, Dec 28) Establishment of the Bears Ears National Monument. Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-pressoffice/2016/12/28/proclamation-establishment-bears-ears-national-monument Ranchod, S. (2001). The Clinton National Monuments: Protecting Ecosystems with the Antiquities Act. Harvard Environmental Law Review, 25, 35-589. Retrieved rom http://www.heinonline.org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/HOL/Page?handle=hein. journals/ helr25&id=1&size=2&collection=journals&index=journals/helr Ruple, J. C., Keiter, R. B., & Ognibene, A. (2016, Sept 9). National Monuments and 37

HIDDEN VALUES: AMERICAN INDIAN EPISTEMOLOGIES IN FEDERAL LAND MANAGEMENT

National Conservation Areas: A Comparison in Light of the Bears Ears Proposal.

Stegner Center, Stegner Center White Paper No. 2016-02.

Sutherland Institute. (2016, May 17). A Bright Future or Another Broken Promise?

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h56Zb3uLUSM. Tainter, J., & Lucas, G. (1983). Epistemology of the Significance Concept. American Antiquity, 48(4), 707-719. doi:10.2307/279772 Thompson, R. (2000). The Antiquities Act of 1906 by Ronald Freeman Lee. Journal of the Southwest, 42(2), 197-269. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ stable/40170127 Zimmerman, L. J. (2002). Archeology, Reburial, and the Tactics of a Disciplineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Self-Delusion. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 16(2), 37-56.

Retrieved from http:// uclajournals.org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/toc/aicr/16/2

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Olivia Juarez

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P U B L IC O F F IC IA L O P I N IO N E S S AYS

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Every Student Should Feel Safe in School

By Katherine Kennedy, Salt Lake City School Board It is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he [or she] is denied the opportunity of an education.

Supreme Court of the United States, Brown v. Board of Education

347 U.S. 483 (1954)

More than 60 years after the Supreme Court recognized that children per-cent spike in absences compared to the previous week—twenty-one need an education in order to succeed, the Salt Lake City School Board hundred of the district’s twenty-five thousand students missed school. Two found it necessary to pass its Safe School Resolution. Among other things, thousand students stayed away again the next day. Attendance returned to our resolution “directs district employees to reject efforts by individuals or normal the following week, which made the two-day rash of absences all agencies to enforce federal immigration law on school grounds, ‘except in the more pronounced” (Blitzer). the rarest cases,’ and to avoid collecting or maintaining information on the A similar situation occurred in Salt Lake City, 1,500 miles from immigration status of individual students” (Wood). By passing the Safe the Mexican border. Neighbors observed what they believed were U.S. School Resolution, the Salt Lake City School Board hopes to ensure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a parking lot at a westall students will receive the education they need to be career and college side elementary school in Salt Lake City in February on a Saturday. Men ready as they go forward into society so they may succeed in life. in bulletproof vests exited two unmarked large black SUVs. It is still As immigration policies change under the newly elected president unclear whether these men were Immigration and Customs Enforcement and his administration, school districts, including the Salt Lake City agents, but subsequent inquiries indicate that they may have been working School District, have seen attendance drop due to parents’ fears about for another government agency. Nevertheless, attendance numbers at their children and their own safety. Parents are afraid. Valerie Gates, 2016 the school dropped the following Monday by around ten percent and Utah Teacher of the Year and a teacher at West High School, explained attendance was lower throughout the week because people thought ICE this poignantly in her public comments at the Salt Lake City School Board agents had occupied a parking lot at the school. Because they felt afraid meeting on February 21, 2017: “There is real fear in our classrooms. Our for themselves or for their children, parents did not bring their students students are afraid to come to school. They ask if they should come to to school. school. Their parents ask me if their children will be safe if they send them Other students are concerned about their friends, and this fear to school.” disrupts their learning. Mrs. Gates, the West High teacher, described her The goal of the Safe School Resolution is to provide every assurance classroom the day after one of her students was taken by Immigration legally possible by the Salt Lake City School District that all students, and Customs Enforcement: “Everyone knew. We always know. We are a regardless of immigration and citizenship status, will be safe in school family in my classroom. The young man put on his suit and went off to his and free from concerns about deportation or exposure. In the Safe School hearing thinking he was doing exactly what he had been asked. Tragically, Resolution, the Salt Lake City School District commits to continue its he had unknowingly missed one court date and he was taken into custody practice of not collecting citizenship data on students; to consider schools the minute he stepped into court. He was not permitted to go home, get a “sensitive” location where disruptions and communications with his clothes, say goodbye. The next day in school, the students were beside students by law enforcement agencies are not allowed unless mandated themselves with worry. There was going to be no teaching in class that by a court; to ensure that an attorney reviews court orders before allowing day.” For several weeks, Gates called a holding facility in Texas each day federal law enforcement agencies access to students; and to comply fully to check on her former student during class time. One day, he was no and willingly with all aspects of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy longer there. She explains, “That day was terrifying for my students. If they Act. In addition, the Salt Lake City School District will provide crisis and are not afraid for themselves, they fear for their friends. There can be no emergency response teams to ensure the safety and wellbeing of any learning when students are afraid.” We need students to be in school, and students who may be impacted by immigration enforcement actions. we need them not to be afraid for themselves, or their families, or their Our students need to be in school if they are to be educated. friends. It is hard to focus on algebra or Shakespeare when you wonder Academic studies “consistently indicate positive and statistically significant whether your friend is warm enough or has enough to eat in a holding relationships between student attendance and academic achievement” facility in Texas. It is terrifying when that friend, who was just a normal (Gottfried). Students want to be in school and parents want them to attend kid in a normal classroom a few weeks before, disappears. school only when they perceive that school is a safe place. If parents and There are many reasons to support all children in our schools, students do not feel they are safe, they will stay home. After a February regardless of their immigration status. One reason is because it is federally 15 raid in a trailer park in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a town adjacent to mandated. According to a “Dear Colleague” letter sent on May 8, 2014, the U.S.-Mexico border, attendance dropped dramatically at local schools: “Under Federal law, State and local educational agencies…are required to “On February 16th, a Thursday, Las Cruces’s public schools saw a sixty- provide all children with equal access to public education at the elementary

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EVERY STUDENT SHOULD FEEL SAFE IN SCHOOL

Katherine Kennedy

and secondary level.” This letter was sent because leaders at the In early March, Board President Heather Bennett, Board Department of Justice and the Department of Education became Member Kristi Swett, and I toured an elementary school located in “aware of student enrollment practices that may chill or discourage the the southwestern quadrant of Salt Lake City with Superintendent Lexi participation, or lead to the exclusion, of students based on their or their Cunningham. Each classroom in this school has adopted a different parents’ or guardians’ actual or perceived citizenship or immigration university, and these Kindergarten to fifth-grade students are proudly status. These practices contravene Federal law.” Moreover, there is college bound. It is inspiring to see these children work hard at math a “Federal obligation to provide equal educational opportunities to concepts, earn reading rewards, dance with a Beverly Taylor Sorenson all children residing within your district and to offer our assistance in Arts Specialist, play violin with the Gifted Music School teachers, earn ensuring that you comply with the law” (Colleague Letter). Similarly, t-shirts provided as incentives from colleges, all in order to succeed. in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, the Court found that states must So many partners collaborate with the Salt Lake City School District educate students regardless of citizenship status, interpreting the equal to help keep kids engaged and on track. One of our partners should protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to anyone be the federal government. Utahns should elect leaders who respect who lives in the United States of America. the education of all children in the United States, no matter their Another reason to support the education of all students regardless immigration or citizenship status. We need an educated Utah workforce, of education status is because it is fiscally sound policy. It is indisputable we need an educated American workforce, and we increasingly need an that refugee and non-English-speaking children place a greater local educated world workforce. Let’s do our part not to sabotage our own cost burden on our schools than an average student. It is also true that future, brightly promised in those young faces. this cost is quickly absorbed by the benefits that immigrants bring to We should educate every child in Utah, regardless of immigration our economy: “immigrants and their offspring pay more in federal status. It is our responsibility to our state, our country, and our society. It taxes than they receive in federal benefits over their lifetimes” and “[i] is also our moral obligation as decent people who care about our young. mmigration is integral to the nation’s economic growth” concludes Rex Let us support the heartfelt messages from our last two presidents, who Nutting after analyzing a National Academies of Sciences report and put their hopes into the names of their policies. President George W. several other studies. Nutting adds that the “positive contribution of Bush wanted no child to be left behind; and President Barack Obama immigrants will only become more important in the coming decades fervently wished that every student should succeed. Let’s give every as the native-born population ages. Growth in the labor force between child in our city, our state, and our country the opportunity to succeed 2020 and 2030 will ‘depend completely on immigrants’ and their U.S.- in life. born children.”

By educating all students, we create a concept of citizenship References and belonging that prevents despair and anger and instead builds community. Gates adds that if students are “going to contribute to Utah’s Blitzer, Jonathan. “After an Immigration Raid, A City’s Students communities, we want them to have an education. We need them to be Vanish.” The New Yorker, March 23, 2017, http://www. college and career ready. If they miss their opportunity for an education, newyorker.com/news/news-desk/after-an-immigration-raid- they can’t help their families and community.” The alternative—denying a-citys-students-vanish) students an education—will ultimately be much more expensive to our Gates, Valerie. Presentation to the Salt Lake City School Board society. There is a clear correlation between students who cannot read during Public Comments. February 21, 2017. and who later are incarcerated. The Literacy Project tells us that “[i] Gottfried, Michael A. “Evaluating the Relationship between lliteracy costs American taxpayers an estimated $20 billion each year” Student Attendance and Achievement in Urban Elementary and students who do not graduate from high school cost our nation and Middle Schools.” American Education Research Journal. $240 billion in social service expenditures and lost tax revenues.”

June 1, 2010.

For me, the most significant reason to educate all children regardless Lhamon, Catherine E., Rosenfelt, Philip H., and Samuels, of their immigration status is because it is the only moral thing to do.

Jocelyn. “Dear Colleague Letter.” Departments of Justice Many elementary-age children whose parents are undocumented are

and Education. May 8, 2014. http://www.k12.wa.us/ United States citizens by birth. Other children are not responsible for MigrantBilingual/pubdocs/May8th2014ColleagueLetter.pdf their parents’ choices, choices that were often made because families Nutting, Rex. “2 trillion reasons why immigrants make America felt they had no other reasonable path forward in their country of origin. great.” MarketWatch. September 23, 2016. http://www.

As I picture the bright faces of eager children, learning in classrooms marketwatch.com/story/immigration-not-a-wall-makes- across our valley, I cannot imagine denying them an education and the america-great-2016-09-22 possibility of succeeding in life.

“Staggering Illiteracy Statistics.” The Literacy Project Foundation.

The feedback from my constituents all strongly supported the Safe http://literacyprojectfoundation.org/community/statistics/ School Resolution. I received a letter from 13 of those constituents, who Wood, Benjamin. “Salt Lake City School District commits to live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, after the Salt Lake City School protecting privacy of undocumented students.” Salt Lake Board voted for the Safe School Resolution. These constituents wrote,

Tribune. March 21, 2017. http://www.sltrib.com/ “Thank you for supporting and signing the Safe School Resolution, news/5086877-155/salt-lake-city-school-district- thereby reassuring immigrant and refugee families that Salt Lake commits#undefined.uxfs City School District facilities are safe and welcoming places where all students are able to focus on their education regardless of immigration status, ethnicity, national origin, race, or religion.” As Stan Penfold, my colleague who represents the Greater Avenues on the Salt Lake City Council, recently stated, “Salt Lakers have big hearts.” Most feedback to the Salt Lake City School Board was in support of all students receiving a quality public education, regardless of their immigration status.

Utahns want students to feel safe at school.

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Affordable Care Act

By Utah Senator Gene Davis

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been great for the American people. More citizens than ever now have access to affordable, quality health care. Regardless, Republicans in Congress have spent the last seven years promising to “repeal and replace” the ACA, also known as Obamacare. Despite these promises, the first weeks of 2017 have shown that not only did Republicans not have any alternative to the ACA, but they were unable to come up with one that could meet the diverging demands of their own caucus. After missing the selfimposed symbolic deadline of March 23 (the seventh anniversary of the signing of the ACA into law), a vote was scheduled for the following day. However, when it became clear that there were far too many “no” votes within the GOP caucus, House Speaker Paul Ryan cancelled the vote.

Given this embarrassing and unnecessary defeat, you might expect the Republicans would move on or, better yet, work in good faith with their Democratic colleagues to improve the ACA, rather than dismantle it. Still, many GOP legislators are vowing to try again to modify many of ACA’s key provisions, including the insurance mandates and fully subsidized Medicaid expansion. A Kaiser Foundation poll shows support for the ACA is at its highest level since the law’s introduction in 2010. Though the ACA is much more popular with Democrats (73% approve while 74% of GOP members view the law unfavorably), voices on both sides agree that health care in the United States can stand improvement.

Enacted in 2010, the omnibus healthcare reform package was designed to provide affordable healthcare access for Americans above 133% of the poverty line. The ACA also envisioned closing a glaring coverage gap by fully expanding Medicaid coverage for those falling below 133% of the poverty line. To assist states, the federal government developed a plan to subsidize the vast majority of that Medicaid expansion. The original intent included a mandate that states provide full Medicaid expansion with the federal government matching 100% of state dollars. That full funding would gradually scale back to 90% as more people enrolled in the program. However, the 2012 Supreme Court case National Federation of Independent Business vs. Sebelius repealed this original provision of the law.

Despite this, many states have implemented full Medicaid expansion.

Unfortunately, Utah declined to join. Kentucky, however, did.

Legislators in the Bluegrass State enacted full Medicaid expansion under the ACA in 2014. Just two years after enacting expansion, Kentucky’s uninsured rate of non-elderly adults fell from 19% in 2013 to 7% in 2015. In the process, Medicaid expansion saved Kentucky $1.15 billion in uncompensated care. Medicaid expansion makes it a state with some of the nation’s top performers for lowincome coverage access.

Additionally, Kentucky has created its own insurance marketplace exchange. Thanks to a well-designed exchange, Kentucky has been

able to offer low insurance rates to those seeking health care on the marketplace. Combined with full Medicaid expansion, Kentucky was able to dramatically improve its healthcare system. Kentucky has been a state with historically poor health care but has now experienced a total transformation under the ACA. Despite all the positives demonstrated by the ACA, many Republicans are seeking to change some of its core provisions in their healthcare revision plan, also known as the American Health Care Act (AHCA). The new Republican plan, presented in early March of this year, seeks to cease full Medicaid expansion funding by 2020.

Additionally, states are obligated to keep the Medicaid funding plans they had in 2016 under the proposed Republican law. This means that states that haven’t fully expanded Medicaid yet will not get an opportunity to under the new administration. Moreover, Republicans seek to remove the mandate that required Americans to enroll in an insurance program from the ACA. The Republican plan still seeks to preserve the requirement that allows children to stay on their parent’s insurance until age 26, and they want to continue providing care to persons with pre-existing conditions.

The new AHCA proposed repeal of full federal matches for the program by 2020. This flies in the face of the reality that since its implementation in 2014, Medicaid expansion under the ACA granted 11 million Americans access to quality health care for the first time. Reduced federal funding will likely restrict healthcare access to millions of Americans who wouldn’t be able to receive health benefits with the ACA and Medicaid expansion.

Furthermore, enacting Medicaid expansion is more fiscally responsible than letting states go without coverage. Utah has been losing money by settling for traditional Medicaid coverage at a 70% federal match rate and neglecting the 90% federal match rate that is available through the ACA. Despite this, Republicans claim that Medicaid in its expanded form is “financially unstable” and seek to preserve traditional federal matching levels. However, expanding Medicaid could save Utah money.

By expanding to a 90-10 match, the state would contribute significantly less to operate its second largest healthcare program.

Additionally, without access to quality health care, many Americans are forced to use the emergency rooms to obtain primary care services and other healthcare needs. This places an extraordinary fiscal burden on hospitals and states as they provide a financial safety net for unrecovered billions of dollars in medical expenses. Prior to ACA, those without healthcare benefits were triaged in the hospital emergency room. If they had a chronic condition, they were sent home only to return with the same problem days later.

And beyond the fiscal aspects of covering the uninsured, neglecting Medicaid expansion hurts those Utahns most in need of coverage. Nationwide, under the ACA, 20 million people gained

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AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

access to quality health care for the first time. In its current form, Utah is neglecting 116,000 of its citizens. It would provide access to Utah’s burgeoning homeless population and our Justice Reform Act, providing this vulnerable population with quality health care.

Emily Young was one of the 116,000 Utahns who slipped through the coverage gap when Utah failed to expand Medicaid under the ACA. Focused on what she called the “American Dream,” Emily earned an MBA and started several entrepreneurial ventures as an adult. She had worked at multiple companies before a widespread company lay-off left her jobless in 2009. In the fall of that same year, Emily was met with an unfortunate diagnosis of breast cancer. For the first time in her life, Emily found herself without healthcare coverage. She was rejected by insurance company after insurance company due to her pre-existing condition. Emily had a surgery to remove the tumors, and her oncologist recommended a ninemonth radiation and treatment plan. Since Emily couldn’t get healthcare insurance, she decided to forgo the recommended treatment plan. In 2014, her cancer came back with a vengeance, and Emily passed away in February of that year.

Though Emily’s story is sad, her situation is not unique. Currently, over 100,000 Utahns fall in the coverage gap like Emily. The ACA is not perfect. But it has introduced healthcare insurance and adequate coverage to more than 20 million Americans. Our uninsured rate in this country has declined steadily as people join.

The ACA is made up of 10 Titles: • Title 1 - Quality, Affordable coverage for all Americans.

• Title 2 - Role of public programs; expands and reforms public coverage under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance program.

• Title 3 - Improving Quality and Efficiency of health care.

• Title 4 - Prevention of chronic disease and improving public health.

• Title 5 - Health care workforce. Increasing and improving the health professionals.

• Title 6 - Transparency and program integrity. To prevent fraud and abuse in public and private health insurance.

• Title 7 - Improving access to innovative medical therapies.

• Title 8 - Community living assistance services and supports.

• Title 9 - Revenue provisions pays for about half of the cost of expanded coverage in Titles 1 and 2.

• Title 10 - Strengthens, Affordable health care for all Americans. The so-called Managers Amendments-Makes amendments to titles 1-9.

These sections were designed to work together to help slow the rising cost of health care, ensure that premiums are primarily spent on coverage rather than advertising, provide better recordkeeping and security, and to maximize the number of Americans who have access to quality health care that they can afford. The creation of this law was done with considerable effort in order to bring on as many supporters as possible. It even includes many ideas that were first introduced by Republicans, despite none of them voting for the original law.

As the president admitted, health care is ‘complex’. The Republican repeal and replace plan was opposed by the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, and AARP, to name just a few. And yet, unbelievably, repeal and replace remains on the table.

It is not too late to turn away from this absurd and irresponsible path.

If Congress were willing to work to make the existing law better rather than destroying it out of spite, then there would be a golden opportunity to do something great for the entire nation. It is far more likely, though, that this is a case of the dog that finally caught up with the car it was chasing.

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Utah Senator Gene Davis

H I N C K L EY F E L L OW SU B M I S SIO N

WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION AND POLICY INNOVATION

Sharon Mastracci

How Women’s Representationin Elective Office Affects Policy Innovation at the State Level

By Sharon Mastracci University of Utah

This paper tests whether women’s representation explains variance across states in policies to support women and families, controlling for alternative explanations of policy adoption including learning from neighboring and similar states or from states with similarly-professionalized legislatures, internal economic and political conditions, or demographics. The model is a simple system of simultaneous equations using variables established in prior research on the link between passive and active representation. Unlike much innovation research, the dependent variable here is not dichotomous. The model estimates effects of internal and external factors on state policies supporting women and families, including the endogenous independent variable Women’s Representation in Elective Office. Women’s Representation in Elective Office, in turn, is instrumented on economic and institutional characteristics known to affect gender parity in political representation. Results demonstrate that, even controlling for factors determining the presence or absence of such policies, women’s representation improves policy outcomes for women and families.

Keywords: policy innovation and diffusion, gender, active and passive representation

Introduction Although Election 2016 did not make history in terms of women’s representation in American politics, women comprise increasing proportions of elective office (CAWP, 2015; England, 2010). Increasing women’s representation at the local, state, or national level improves policy outcomes for women and families, even when controlling for state economic conditions, demographics, policy diffusion from neighboring states, policy diffusion from politically-similar states, and resources available to lawmakers in a state, including professionalized legislatures, women’s caucuses, and unified political control of a state under the Democratic Party. The Center for American Progress (CAP) recently released The State of Women in America: A 50-State Analysis of How Women are Faring (Chu & Posner, 2013). The state-by-state grades issued by CAP, coupled with data on women’s representation in elective office, create a unique opportunity to test whether descriptive, or passive, representation translates into substantive, or active, representation at the state level.

Research has demonstrated that “women legislators show a higher legislative priority on issues concerning women’s rights and children and families,” (Taylor-Robinson & Heath, 2003, p. 77) and women’s representation in public office is important to the electorate (Dolan & Sanbonmatsu, 2008). Much of the research on policy adoption has focused on institutional resources and political climate, but not on policymakers themselves: “Who makes public policy is important in democratic politics” (Burrell, 1997, p. 565 emphasis supplied). This paper focuses on the effect of women’s representation on policy innovation, while accounting for internal factors as well as diffusion from neighboring and politically-similar states to explain state policy innovation and adoption. States are interesting not only because “the policy

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aims of state or local governments are often different than the national government” (Eissler, Russell & Jones, 2014, p. S74), but also because more access points exist via state constitutional provisions allowing direct citizen access through referenda, and governors can play active roles policy innovation via use of the line-item veto. Differences in policy innovation at the state level “are not merely nuance: they have the potential to alter fundamental understandings of the policy process” (Eissler, Russell & Jones, 2014, p. S75). This study draws upon theories of representation and the link between passive representation and active representation. Which factors determine whether female legislators will act on behalf of women’s interests and champion women’s policies? Testing the link between passive and active representation in policies for women and families demonstrates whether more women in elective office translates into more and better policies to improve women’s wellbeing in economic security, leadership, and health care.

Review of the Literature on Policy Innovation and Women’s Representation Cobb and Elder (1971) ask if democratic theory prescribes maximum popular participation, how can one explain the absence of participation in a functioning democracy? They conclude that, in a stable system, the population at large leaves much of policymaking to a handful of elites, which Cobb and Elder label “stable unrepresentation” (1971, p.

897). Participation in periodic elections provides the means by which public opinion is expressed to these elites. The representativeness of elites, therefore, matters greatly under conditions of stable unrepresentation (Burrell, 1997). Berry and Berry (1990) stress the importance of including both internal factors and external diffusion factors in a single, unified, model:

The Hinckley Journal of Politics

2017

Evidence for both the internal determinants and regional diffusion and O’Connor find token status facilitates active representation by models of state innovation, as both (1) internal political and helping “women representatives to secure committee assignments that economic characteristics of a state and (2) the number of previ- allow them to block [anti-choice] legislation” (1993, p. 102). Likewise, ously adopting neighboring states are found to influence [policy Crowley (2004) finds that “tokens make a policy difference indepeninnovation] … these two dominant explanations of state innova- dently and to a greater extent than when they are on the cusp of tion are in no sense inconsistent (p. 410). becoming non-tokens” (p. 109). Bratton (2002) emphasizes the potenStudying policymaking at the state level reveals the influence of neigh- tial power of token status: “Women in very homogenous settings do boring states’ policy agendas, which would be much more difficult to not react to their token status by minimizing gender differences in demonstrate at the national level. Eissler, Russell, and Jones (2014) agenda setting … women serving in legislatures with little gender maintain that the states provide a fruitful context for policy research, balance are actually more successful relative to men than their counand Koven and Mausloff (2002) confirm the enduring impact of state terparts in more equitable settings” (p. 121, emphasis in original). The political culture. This paper answers the call for more research on difference between Kanter’s predictions and evidence from state legstate-level policy innovation by testing whether women’s representation islatures is context: Kanter studied a private-sector corporation, where explains variance across states in policies supporting women and token women benefitted from conforming to corporate culture and families. The Center for American Progress graded all 50 states on fitting in. In contrast, female legislators interpret their difference as their policies to improve women’s wellbeing using 14 factors gauging essential to and even definitive of representation. Standing out in economic security, nine leadership measures, and 13 health policy politics benefits the female legislator in ways that the corporate ladder factors: “We ranked each state on all 36 factors and then arrived at climber does not enjoy: “Where representation is part of the job overall rankings in the categories of economics, leadership, and health description, the treatment of women as ‘representative of their category’ by taking the averages of how states ranked on the factors within these may encourage them to behave distinctly from men” (Bratton, 2005, categories” (Chu & Posner, 2013, p. 4). Economic security factors p. 103). include the overall wage gap between women and men as well as Research building upon the structural analyses of Thomas (1991), separate wage gaps by race and ethnicity, poverty rates overall and by Reingold (1992), and Berkman and O’Connor (1993) casts a wider net race and ethnicity, the presence of paid family leave and sick leave laws, and examines institutions and norms across state legislatures that not access to and spending on early childhood education, and the effects only affect the numbers of women in them, but also the factors underof a higher-than-federal minimum wage. Leadership factors not only lying the link between passive and active representation. Kathlene include women’s political representation, but also women’s under- (1994) examines transcripts from 12 randomly-selected committee representation in management positions outside the public sector: hearings, she finds evidence of backlash: “Women legislators, despite overall, and by race and ethnicity. Health care factors include rates of their numerical and positional gains, may be seriously disadvantaged coverage by race and ethnicity, the state’s position on Medicaid expan- in committee hearings and unable to participate equally in legislative sion, funding for reproductive services, and unconstitutional restric- committee hearings … the more women on a committee, the more tions on abortion, including the enactment of Targeted Regulation of silenced women became” (1994, p. 573). Swers (2001) likewise implores Abortion Provider (TRAP) laws. researchers to look beyond numbers of women and interrogate the Factors affecting women’s representation are of enduring importance contexts within which women serve. Cammisa and Reingold (2004) to researchers because women in legislatures affects legislation. Early reveal an inverse relationship between women’s advocacy and level of research relied on Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s (1977/1993) critical mass professionalization in state legislatures, which “created a more businessframework to predict the potential policy impact of electing women like working environment, one less reliant on male-dominated inforto state legislatures. For example, Thomas (1991) surveyed legislators mal networks” (p. 199). Informal networks create shadow structures in 12 states to determine whether male and female lawmakers cham- from which women are excluded (McGuire, 2002). Rosenthal (1997), pioned different causes and whether any differences existed in suc- however, takes a different approach to legislative professionalism: “In cessful passage of bills dealing with issues of women, children, and the more professionalized legislatures, committee chairs are less likely families. Kanter’s critical mass theory predicts female legislators would to articulate people-oriented motivations and less likely to include avoid bills on women’s-interest policy and would not have success others in committee management” (1997, p. 596). Arceneaux (2001) passing such legislation until their numbers exceeded 15 percent of incorporates state culture into his analysis of women’s representation total seats. Thomas confirms this prediction: “Women in states with in state legislatures and finds state culture (Elazar 1984, Miller 1991), the highest percentages of female representatives introduce and pass “affects the level of state legislative female representation independent more priority bills dealing with issues of women, children, and fami- of political culture and ideology” (p. 143). Poggione (2004) confirms lies than men in their states and more than their female counterparts that the link between passive and active representation goes through in low representation states” (1991, p. 958). Thomas also demonstrates context: “The policy impact of women legislators is mediated by legthe importance of women’s legislative caucuses to introduce and pass islative institutions and women’s positions within them” (p. 313). bills targeting women, children, and families, a result confirmed in Dodson (1997) investigates the gendered nature of representation subsequent research (Beckwith & Cowell-Meyers, 2007; Crowley, 2004; itself: Serving in elective office is a barrier for women with young Reingold, 1992). Berkman and O’Connor (1993) also refute Kanter’s children but not for men with young children. This has “consequences (1977/1993) prediction that too few women results in token status for descriptive representation, for it means that women will have fewer where heightened scrutiny would compel them to avoid championing years to serve, to build careers within the institution, to accumulate women’s issues. Examining abortion policy in several states, Berkman seniority … and perhaps most importantly to climb the political ladder

47

WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION AND POLICY INNOVATION

to higher office” (p. 574). Limiting women’s numerical representation reduces “substantive representation of women by limiting the number of officeholders who are both available to serve and committed to ‘act for’ women” (Dodson, 1997, p. 579). Bernstein (1997) also examines factors linking passive and active representation; particularly the effects of state political culture and economic conditions on passage of family and medical leave. During policy development, proponents of family and medical leave sought to broaden its appeal but found that difficult when benefits are diffuse but costs are easily quantifiable: “Compared to other public goods like clean air, family and medical leave offers a scattered and occasional benefit around which it is difficult to organize” (Bernstein, 1997, p. 89). Unlike previous analyses, both Bernstein (1997) and Nowlin (2011) focus on the types of policies promoted, beyond the usual observation that women legislators advocate policies to benefit women and families. In the case of family and medical leave as well as the types of policies examined by the Center for American Progress, “attitudes regarding the target population of a policy can influence the type of policy that is created … [and] can impact the way that target populations are viewed” (Nowlin, 2011, p. 51). The literature provides a number of reasons to consider the effect of women’s representation on policy adoption.

States remain important contexts within which to examine policy development and advocacy, due in part to executive powers enjoyed by state governors but not shared at the national level—particularly the line item veto—and also potential longer terms of office for statelevel executives compared to the national level (Eissler, Russell & Jones, 2014). For instance, only seven of 50 state governors face absolute two-term limits as the President does. Furthermore, “governors have arguably become more politically powerful over the course of the last several decades because of the ‘devolution revolution’” (Heidbreder & Scheurer, 2012, p. 4). Consistent with research establishing links between passive and active representation for female state legislators (Bayer & Mishler, 2008, Beckwith & Cowell-Meyers, 2007, Berkman & O’Connor, 1993, Bernstein, 2007, Bratton, 2002, 2005, Cammisa & Reingold, 2004, Caiazza, 2004, Childs & Krook, 2008, Crowley, 2004, Dodson, 2007, Poggione, 2004, Reingold, 1992, Rosenthal, 2007, Stucky, Miller & Murphy, 2008, Swers, 2001, Thomas, 1991), Atkeson and Carrillo (2007), Heidbreder (2012), and Heidbreder and Scheurer (2012) find female governors also advocate on behalf of policies benefitting women and families: “Female governors mirror female legislators in terms of placing greater emphasis on issue[s] of concern to women … female governors in general spend more time discussing social welfare policies in their state of the state speeches” (Heidbreder & Scheurer, 2012, p. 6). Atkeson and Carrillo (2007) find that both male and female constituents perceive female governors to be more effective at passing and implementing social welfare policies; even more effective than female legislators: It may be that female executives provide different cues than female legislators because of the different level of office. Governors are executives, sole proprietors of their office, which provides them with greater visibility and media coverage than legislators (p. 90).

In short, state governments provide ideal contexts within which to examine the link between women’s passive and active representation, and the literature points to several reasons why women’s representation would be expected to affect policy innovation and adoption. The Center for American Progress assessment of states policies for women and

48

Sharon Mastracci

families provides an opportunity to test and expand theory on policy innovation and diffusion.

Data, Model, and Method The dependent variable, CAP State Policy Grade, ranges from A to F. Letter grades were converted to numeric values based on standard academic grading, where A equals 4.0 and F equals 0.0. Appendix A contains detail on each component of the State Policy Grade. Table 1 displays the distribution of grades across states.

Table 1: Values of the Dependent Variable: State Policy Grades, 2013 Letter Grade

Numeric Value

States

A

4.0

California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Vermont

A–

3.7

Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Washington

B+

3.3

Alaska, Illinois, Minnesota

B

3.0

Nevada, Oregon, Massachusetts, Rhode Island

B–

2.7

Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico

C+

2.3

Arizona, Iowa, Virginia

C

2.0

Florida, Michigan, West Virginia, Wyoming

C–

1.7

Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin

D+

1.3

Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska

D

1.0

Idaho, North Dakota, South Carolina

D–

0.7

Kansa, North Carolina, Tennessee

F

0.0

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah

Source: Chu and Posner, 2013, p. 5.

States govern a broader range of issues now than in the past, due to devolution, and some issues are handled at both national and state levels. For this reason, a comprehensive index of women’s representation is used; broader than percent of women in the legislature (Thomas, 1991) or presence of a female governor (Heidbreder, 2012). Women’s representation is measured by the Gender Parity Index from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). The CAWP Gender Parity Index is a comprehensive measure of women’s representation in elected offices at all levels. The Index ranges from zero to 100, where scores lower than 50 indicate underrepresentation of women in elective office, above 50 indicates overrepresentation, and 50 indicates parity “especially if the state can maintain a score near 50 for several election cycles” (CAWP, 2015, p. 39). Parity Indexes from 2014 are used in the analysis, as these data are the most temporally proximate to the 2013 State Policy Grades. In 2014, only New Hampshire approached parity with a Parity Index of 47.4. Parity Indexes are based on women’s representation in all of the following (CAWP, 2015, p. 39): • Three most recent gubernatorial elections

The Hinckley Journal of Politics

•

Most recent election for all other statewide elected executive offices • Four most recent U.S. Senate elections • Most recent U.S. House elections • Most recent state legislative elections • Gender of house speakers and state senate presidents • Number of female mayors in all cities with populations over 30,000 • County executives in the five largest counties Thirty percent of a state’s Parity Index is based on its statewide elected offices, including governor, with weights denoting the relative power of each statewide executive office, including lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, and auditor/comptroller.

Another 30 percent of a state’s Parity Index is based on women’s Congressional representation. Thirty percent of a state’s Parity Index is based on state legislative representation, “as state legislatures often serve as a launching pad for men and women who are elected to higher office” (CAWP, 2015, p. 42). Women’s representation in local offices, including mayors and county officials, comprise 10 percent of a state’s Gender Parity Index.

CAP State Policy Grades are a function of several state-level institutional factors such as legislative professionalism, presence of a women’s legislative caucus, and whether the governor has line-item veto authority. External factors explaining State Policy Grades include state economic conditions, demographic characteristics, partisan control of the executive and legislative branches, and public opinion gauged by the proportion of women who voted in the previous year’s election. The Gender Parity Index is a function of institutional factors such as term limits and multi-member districts, as well as women’s representation in the executive and legislative branches, women’s labor force participation rate, and proportion of the population living in urban areas. The strength of this model lies in the specification of the dependent variable—CAP State Policy Grade—for it is unlike dependent variables in much of the innovation literature in that it is not dichotomous. The weakness of this model arises from the availability of data: policy grades are available for only one year, 2013. Because event-history data are not available, event history analysis is not used here. Box 1 below shows the system of simultaneous equations that models these relationships, and Table 2 provides detail on the theoretical bases upon which these variables were chosen.

Box 1: Simultaneous Equations Model of Policy Making and Women’s Representation State Policy Grade = f [Gender Parity Index, Divided Control, Unemployment Rate, Percent Over 65, Percent Below Poverty, Percent African American, Line Item Veto, Female Governor, State Political Culture, Professionalization of the Legislature, Women’s Legislative Caucus, Average of Neighboring States’ Grades, Average of Red/Blue (2012) States’ Grades, Democratic Legislative Majority, Percent of Women Voting in 2012] Gender Parity Index= g [Term Limits, Urbanization, Female LFPR, Multi Member Districts, Percent Women in Legislature, Female Governor]

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Table 2: Theoretical Basis for the Model and Priori Expectations Independent (X)

Theoretical Basis

Variable Gender Parity Index

Atkeson & Carillo 2007;

2014;

Cammisa & Reingold 2004; Beckwith

Percent Female Legisla-

& Cowell- Meyers 2007; Carroll 2001;

tors

Expected Effect on Y +

Childs & Krook 2008; Flammang 1985; Mansbridge 1999; Poggione 2004; Thomas & Welch 1991; Thomas 1991

Average of Neighbors’

Berry & Berry 1990

+

Sylvester & Haider-Markel 2016

+

Elazar 1984; Mead 2004; Erickson,

−

Grades Average Grades in Red/ Blue States State Culture

Wright & McIver 1993; Miller 1991 Women’s Voter Turn-

Berry & Berry 2009; Jones & Baumgart-

out 2012

ner 2004

+

Democratic

Bratton 2005; Berkman & O’Connor 1993

+

Berry & Berry 2009; Crowley 2004;

−

Majority in Legislature Divided Control

Heidbreder & Scheurer 2012 Term Limits for Leg-

Darcy, Welch & Clark 1987; Dodson 1997

+

Areceneau 2001

+

Women’s Legislative

Beckwith & Cowell-Meyers 2007; Crow-

+

Caucus

ley 2004; Thomas 1991

Female Governor

Atkeson & Carrillo 2007; Heidbreder

islators Multi-Member Districts

+

2012; Heidbreder & Scheurer 2012 Governor has Line-

Heidbreder 2012; Heidbreder & Scheurer

Item Veto

2012

+

State Economic Statis-

Berry & Berry 1990

+

Bernstein 1997; Crowley 2004

+

Women’s LFPR

Arceneau 2001

+

Percent

Berry & Berry 2009;

tics 2013: State Unemployment Rate

Urbanized Percent below Poverty

Berry & Berry 1990; Heidbreder 2012

Line

Heidbreder & Schuerer 2012

Percent over Age 65 Percent African

+ +

Heidbreder & Schuerer 2012

American

−

Compared to Professional Legislature

Cammissa & Reingold

Full-time “lite”

2004; Carroll 1994;

Hybrid

_ −

Part-time “lite” Part-time, low pay,

Kathlene 1994;

−

small staff

Rosenthal 1997

−

49

WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION AND POLICY INNOVATION

Table 3 provides means, minima, and maxima for all variables in the system of simultaneous equations in Box 1. The unit of analysis is the state, resulting in 50 total observations for 2013. On average, states earned a C on policies to support women and families (mean State Policy Grade ≈ 2.0). The Average of Neighboring States’ Grades is calculated from these numeric values and for each state is equal to the average of all bordering states’ grades. The Average of Similar States’ Grades is calculated from CAP State Policy Grades and states are divided by 2012 presidential election results. Blue states earn B grades (3.05) on average and red states earn D- grades (0.83). Average Gender Parity Index denotes women’s underrepresentation at 18.32, with a minimum of 4.5 (Virginia) and maximum of 47.4 (New Hampshire).

Elazar’s (1984) state culture variable measures state culture from 1 to 9, with higher scores indicating a more conservative state culture and lower scores indicating a more liberal one. Women’s 2013 representation in state legislatures ranges from 11.8 percent (Louisiana) to 41 percent (Colorado), and women’s voter turnout ranges from 40.9 percent (Texas) to 64.8 percent (Wisconsin). A series of dichotomous variables is used to indicate whether the state has term limits, multi member districts, a women’s legislative caucus, a professionalized, full-time legislature, as well as measures of partisan control in the legislative and executive branches. Nineteen states had unified Democratic majorities in 2013, power was divided between the executive and legislative branches in 12 states, and 19 states had unified Republican majorities. In 15 states, legislators have at least partial term limits, 10 states have multiple-member districts, and 40 states have women’s legislative caucuses or commissions. In 2013, five states had female governors, and 10 governors had line-item veto power. About half of all state legislatures are a mix of full-time and part-time legislators and staff—Hybrid Legislatures—with fully one-third of all state legislatures as part-time citizen legislatures. Finally, a series of measures gauge external factors—state economic conditions—in 2013, including unemployment, women’s labor force participation rate, and poverty rates.

The average unemployment rate was 6.73, ranging from 2.9 percent (North Dakota) to 9.6 percent (Nevada). Women’s labor force participation rates in 2013 were as low as 46.2 percent in West Virginia and as high as 63.6 percent in North Dakota. On average, about 15 percent of state populations are living below the poverty level in 2013, which matches national averages, with as few as 8.7 percent in New Hampshire and nearly a quarter in Mississippi. With respect to demographics, about 14 percent of the population is over 65, about 10 percent of state populations are African American, and more than half live in urban areas.

Table 3: Descriptive Statistics (n=50)

50

Variable

Data Source

Policy Grade 2013

Chu & Posner, 2013

1.98

Mean

0

Min.

4.0

Max.

Gender Parity Index 2014

CAWP 2015

18.32

4.5

47.4

Average of Neighboring States’ Grades

Calculated from

1.83

0

3.42

Avg. Grade of Red/Blue States (2012)

Chu & Posner, 2013

1.98

0.83

3.05

State Culture

Elazar 1984; Mead 2004

4.94

1

9

Percent Female Legislators

NCSL 2013

24.04

11.8

41

Sharon Mastracci

Women’s Voter Turnout 2012

IWPR 2012

53.27

40.9

64.8

Democratic Majority in Legislature

NCSL 2013

0.38

0

1

Divided Control (Executive/Legislative)

NCSL 2013

0.24

0

1

Term Limits for Legislators

NCSL 2013

0.30

0

1

Multi-Member Districts

NCSL 2013

0.20

0

1

Women’s Legislative Caucus

NCSL 2013

0.80

0

1

Female Governor

CAWP

0.10

0

1

Governor has Line-Item Veto

CSG 2010

0.20

0

1

BLS

6.73

2.9

9.6

Bureau of the Census Bureau of the Census Bureau of the Census

55.02 59.88 14.69

46.2 17.38 8.7

63.6 92.24 22.7

Bureau of the Census Bureau of the Census

14.41 10.34

8.9 0.40

18.6 37.2

0.06

0

1

0.14 0.48 0.20 0.12

0 0 0 0

1 1 1 1

State Economic Statistics 2013 State Unemployment Rate Women’s LFPR Percent Urbanized Percent below Poverty Line Percent over Age 65 Percent African American Professionalized Legislature 2013 Full-time, well-paid large staff Full-time “lite” Hybrid Part-time “lite” Part-time, low pay, small staff

NCSL

In the next section, results of maximum likelihood estimation are discussed in light of the mean values above. Results show that increasing women’s representation at the local, state, or national level improves policy outcomes for women and families, even when controlling for state economic conditions, demographics, policy diffusion from neighboring and politically-similar states, and resources available to women lawmakers in a state, including legislative professionalization, the presence of women’s caucuses, and unified Democratic Party control.

Results of Maximum Likelihood Estimation Following Berry and Berry (2014), the model includes both internal/ motivation and resource factors and external/diffusion factors. Following Caiazza (2004), the effects of factors on women’s representation and the effects of representation on policy adoption are estimated using instrumental variables in a system of simultaneous equations (see Box 1). Following Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler (2005), these effects are found using limited-information maximum-likelihood estimation.

Table 4 shows the results of maximum-likelihood estimation. The model performs very well considering the number of observations, explaining fully 78 percent of the variation in State Policy Grade. A check of the residuals reveals the mean at zero, standard deviation equal to 0.65, and minimum and maximum values within /2.0/, indicating an absence of outliers. Leading factors affecting State Policy Grades include women’s representation in elective office, professionalized state legislatures, and unified Democratic Party control, consistent with findings from previous research (see especially Heidbreder &

The Hinckley Journal of Politics

Scheurer, 2012; Heidbreder 2012).

Table 4: Results from the Maximum Likelihood Estimation Independent Variable (X)

CAWP Gender Parity Index

Point Estimate of the Effect on Policy Grade (Y)

0.07***

Interval Estimate (95% Confidence Interval) 0.02

0.12

0.41

-0.25

1.01

Unemployment Rate

-0.14

-0.27

0.24

Percent Over 65

-0.01

-0.14

0.12

Percent Below Poverty

-0.16**

-0.28

-0.03

0.00

-0.05

0.05

-0.21

-0.75

0.34

Divided Control

Percent African American Line Item Veto

0.10

-0.09

0.28

Full-Time “Lite” Legislature†

-0.45

-1.52

0.63

State Political Culture

Hybrid Legislature†

-1.10**

-2.14

-0.06

Part-Time “Lite” Legislature†

-1.03**

-2.10

0.09

Part-Time Legislature†

-1.44*

-2.76

-0.12

Women’s Legislative Caucus -0.30

-0.80

0.21

Average Neighbor Grade

-0.01

-0.36

0.34

Avg. Grades in Red/Blue States

0.06

-0.34

0.46

Democratic Legislative Majority

1.58***

0.85

2.32

Women’s Voter Turnout 2012

0.02

-0.02

0.07

Model Chi2

209.96***

Model R2

0.7846

Number of Observations

50

Maximum likelihood estimation with instrumental variables and two simultaneous equations † Compared to Professional Legislature (full-time, well-paid, fully-staffed) *** Statistically different from zero at the 0.01 level ** Statistically different from zero at the 0.05 level *Statistically different from zero at the 0.10 level

Women’s representation in elective office at the local, state, or national level improves policy outcomes for women, even when controlling for other factors affecting policy outcomes like resources available to state legislatures, economic conditions in the state, and unified party control. The following discussion focuses on effects that are statistically different from zero. Gender Parity Indexes range from 4.5 to 47.4. A ten-point increase in Gender Parity Index—very near to a one-standard-deviation increase (sd=9.48)—would improve the State Policy Grade by 0.7 points, all else being equal. The average State Policy Grade is C (2.0), so increasing the Gender Parity Index by about one standard deviation raises the average state’s grade from C to B− (2.7).

Electing women to local, state, or national office increases the Gender Parity Index. The State of Utah’s Gender Parity Index nearly doubled between 2014 (5.7) and 2015 (10.2) on the election of Mia Love to Congress, thereby increasing female representation in that state’s House delegation by 25 percent (Rep. Love holds one of four House seats). If the proportion of the state’s population living below poverty increases by one standard deviation (3.14) from the mean of 14.69 percent to 17.83 percent, State Policy Grade falls from C (2.0) to D+ (1.49). This inverse relationship is consistent with prior research, which found lawmakers “may be trying to avoid the percep-

2017

tion that they are helping or even pandering to the poor” (Heidbreder & Scheurer, 2012, p. 7).

Levels of state legislative professionalism are compared to the omitted category, Full-Time Legislature, and indicate that states in the “Full-Time Lite” category (NCSL, 2016) are no different from the Full-Time Legislature in terms of its effects on women’s policy outcomes. All other forms of state legislature fare worse for women’s policy outcomes, as indicated by their coefficients’ negative signs. In terms of magnitude, less-professionalized legislatures reduce State Policy Grades by a full letter grade and more, as indicated by their coefficients’ magnitudes. This finding is consistent with previous research (Cammisa & Reingold, 2004). Democratic Party control increases State Policy Grades by 1.65 points, or from C (2.0) to B+ (3.65), also consistent with previous research: “Unified Democratic control of state legislatures is significantly and positively related to liberal social welfare/ health care policy attention” (Heidbreder, 2012, p. 311). In sum, results from maximum-likelihood estimation confirm the positive and statisticallysignificant relationship between women’s representation in elective office and policy outcomes to support women and families. In so doing, it further confirms the link between passive and active representation and contributes to policy innovation theory.

Conclusions and Directions for Further Research Increasing women’s representation in elective office improves policy outcomes for women and families, even when accounting for state economic conditions, demographics, policy diffusion from neighboring states, professionalized legislatures, women’s caucuses, and unified political control of a state under the Democratic Party. Women’s representation affects policy innovation and adoption. The Center for American Progress’ stateby-state grades along with data on women’s representation in state legislatures are combined to demonstrate how passive representation translates into active representation at the state level. The strength of the model is in the specification of the dependent variable, which is not dichotomous as in much of the innovation literature. Its weakness is in the duration of data available, which precludes use of event history analysis. Further research on state-level policy adoption might examine how policy types—whether in terms of costs and benefits (Bernstein, 2997; Nowlin, 2011) or in terms of Lowi’s typology and women’s policies (Newman, 1994)—are championed and by whom. Further research might also take a qualitative approach and interview male and female legislators about bills that were not introduced and inquire into the reasons why some legislation is backed and others not. The role of male legislators in women’s policy development could be examined, as well. Finally, the results and implications of this study are limited by the availability of a single year of State Policy Grades.

Future research could estimate CAP state grades over time and gauge the effects of changing levels of women’s representation on policy outcomes for women and families. This study confirms the link between passive and active representation of women at the state level; examining this outcome over time would deepen our understanding of policy innovation, adoption, and diffusion.into federal land management purview.

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