Barack Obama and the South: demography as electoral opportunity

ABSTRACT

Barack Obama was more successful in the South in the 2008 election than many previous Democratic presidential nominees had been. While John McCain continued Republican dominance in the conservative region, it was a major breakthrough for a northern liberal Democrat, especially an African American from Illinois, to win three southern states and secure 55 electoral votes. Florida, North Carolina and Virginia were good opportunities for Obama because, demographically, they had come to resemble other large states outside the South. In these ‘converging’ southern states, the Latino and Asian communities had grown substantially. The percentage of college-educated Whites had increased and there had been large-scale migration from other regions of the country. The states that Obama won in the South were not as ‘southern’ as they once were. In some southern states, those called the ‘neo-Confederate South’ in this article, white support for Obama was less than John Kerry had received in 2004. This decline in white voting for the Democratic presidential nominee occurred despite the difficult economic times that enveloped the country in the months preceding the election, and the general unpopularity of the incumbent Republican administration headed by George W. Bush. Some of these states, like Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, had been among the most intransigent states in resisting the claims of the civil rights movement for social and political equality for African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. In the future it may be more accurate to speak of more than one South, rather than refer to the region as an undifferentiated whole.     

Changing the geography of opportunity by expanding residential choice: Lessons from the Gautreaux program

Abstract

The concept of “geography of opportunity” suggests that where individuals live affects their opportunities. While multivariate analyses cannot control completely for individual self‐selection to neighborhoods, this article examines a residential integration program—the Gautreaux program—in which low‐income blacks are randomly assigned to middle‐income white suburbs or low‐income mostly black urban areas.

Compared with urban movers, adult suburban movers experience higher employment but no different wages or hours worked, and suburban mover youth do better on several educational measures and, if not in college, are more likely to have jobs with good pay and benefits. The two groups of youth are equally likely to interact with peers, but suburban movers are much more likely to interact with whites and only slightly less likely to interact with blacks. The article considers how attrition might affect the observations and speculates about the program's strengths and pitfalls.     

The geography of metropolitan opportunity: A reconnaissance and conceptual framework

Abstract

We present a conceptual framework for metropolitan opportunity and a model of individual decision making about issues affecting youth's future socioeco‐nomic status. Decision making and its geographic context have objective and subjective aspects. Objective spatial variations occur in the metropolitan opportunity structure—social systems, markets, and institutions that aid upward mobility. Decisions are based on the decision‐maker's values, aspirations, preferences, and subjective perceptions of possible outcomes, which are all shaped by the local social network (e.g., kin, neighbors, and friends).

We also review the psychological literature on decision making. We hypothesize that the decision‐making method varies with the range of opportunities considered: Those with fewer options adopt a less considered method wherein mistakes and short‐term focus are more likely. Our review also finds empirical evidence that the local social network has an important effect on youth's decisions regarding education, fertility, work, and crime. Policy implications are discussed.     

The political opportunity structure of the Dutch peace movement

This article analyses the political opportunity structure of the Dutch political system with respect to new social movements in general, and the Dutch peace movement in particular. It is shown that the prevailing strategy of the Dutch political system is one of integration, and that the dominant party on the left (the Social Democratic Party) went through a process of transformation which opened it up to the new challengers at precisely the moment when the cycle of protest of the new social movements took off. The consequences of the high degree of openness of the Dutch system are then documented on the basis of a detailed analysis of the alliance structure of the Dutch peace movement.     

The rise of right-wing populist Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands: A discursive opportunity approach

This article seeks to explain the dramatic rise of Pim Fortuyn's right-wing populist party during the campaign for the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands in 2002. Fortuyn succeeded in attracting by far the most media attention of all political actors and his new party won 17 per cent of the votes. This article analyses how this new populist party managed to mobilise so much attention and support so suddenly and so rapidly. It uses the notion of 'discursive opportunities' and argues that the public reactions to Pim Fortuyn and his party played a decisive role in his ability to further diffuse his claims in the public sphere and achieve support among the Dutch electorate. The predictions of the effects of discursive opportunities are empirically investigated with longitudinal data from newspapers and opinion polls. To study the dynamics of competition over voter support and over space in the public debate during the election campaign, an ARIMA time-series model is used as well as a negative binomial regression with lagged variables to account for the time-series structure of the data. It is found that discursive opportunities have significantly affected the degree to which Fortuyn was successful both in the competition for voter support, and regarding his ability to express his claims in the media. Combining these two results, a dynamic feedback process is identified that can explain why a stable political situation suddenly spiralled out of equilibrium. Visibility and supportive reactions of others positively affected the opinion polls. Consonance significantly increased Fortuyn's claim-making; dissonance undermined it. Furthermore, electoral support and negative claims on the issue of immigration and integration in the media by others enhanced Fortuyn's ability to further diffuse his viewpoints and to become the main political opinion-maker during the turbulent election campaign of 2002.     

Equal employment opportunity across states: The EEOC 1979–1989

This study uses unpublished EEOC data from 1979–89 to concentrate on how dwindling resources and policy changes advocated by the EEOC chairs regarding the time and intensity devoted to anti-discrimination cases may have yielded regional variation in discrimination outcomes. We arrive at two major conclusions. First, evidence here suggests that the EEOC counteracted potential regional resistance against anti-discrimination laws. Second, we argue that the seeming inefficiency of the EEOC during Thomas' first years as EEOC chair appears to have occurred because he inherited a large pool of low-merit cases.     

Child characteristics and successful use of housing vouchers: Estimates from the moving to opportunity demonstration

Abstract

Voucher‐based programs have become the most common form of housing assistance for low‐income families in the United States, yet only a slim majority of households that are offered vouchers actually move with them. This article uses data from 2,938 households in the Moving to Opportunity demonstration program to examine whether child characteristics influence the probability that a household will successfully use a housing voucher to lease‐up.

Our results suggest that while many child characteristics have little bearing on the use of housing vouchers, child health, behavioral, and educational problems, particularly the presence of multiple problems in a household, do have an influence. Households with two or more child problems are 7 percentage points less likely to move than those who have none of these problems or only one. Results suggest that such families may need additional support to benefit from housing vouchers or alternative types of affordable housing units.     

The inferential opportunity of specificity: theory and empirical causality in American Political Development

Public Choice - The context-specificity of the research field of American Political Development (APD) can make it an especially fertile ground for empirical assessment of causal explanations of...     

Windows of opportunity: Lead poisoning prevention,housing affordability,and energy conservation

Abstract

We used housing demolition and window replacement rates to forecast prevalence trends for childhood lead poisoning and lead paint hazards from 1990 to 2010 for the President's Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children. The mid‐point of that forecast has now been validated by national blood lead data and the 1998–2000 National Survey of Lead and Allergens in Housing.

The validation of the task force model and new analysis of these survey data indicate that window replacement explains a large part of the substantial reduction in lead poisoning that occurred from 1990 to 2000. A public‐private effort to increase window replacement rates could help eliminate childhood lead poisoning by 2010. This effort would also improve home energy efficiency and affordability, in addition to reducing air pollution from power plants, and a broader initiative could reduce other housing‐related health risks as well.     

论农地社会价值及其核算

文章首先分析了农地社会价值存在的客观依据和现实意义,其次再分析了当前我国农村土地社会价值的实现存在不少障碍。基于上述分析,文章认为农地的社会价值是一个历史现象,随着生产力水平的提高会逐步弱化,在目前我国社会生产力水平低、人多地少和国家经济安全等多重的社会约束条件下,必须正确认识、反映和科学计算农地的社会价值。     

Subnational political opportunity structures and the success of the radical right: Evidence from the March 2004 regional elections in France

Abstract.  This article attempts to explain the impact of department-level political opportunity structures on the electoral success of the French Front National (FN) in the 2004 regional elections. The concept of 'political opportunity structure' refers to the degree of openness of a particular political system and the external institutional or socio-economic constraints and opportunities that it sets for political parties. Comparative analysis across subnational units is conducted where the 94 departments of mainland France are the units of analysis. The significance of electoral institutions (district magnitude), party competition (effective number of parties), electoral behaviour (turnout) and socioeconomic conditions (immigration and unemployment) on the ability of the FN to gather votes across the departments is assessed by means of multiple regression. The empirical results show that the subnational political opportunity structures have been of great importance for the FN. Some four out of the five independent variables are statistically significant and explain a great deal of the variance in the two dependent variables (electoral support for FN list and index of electoral success). Turnout and district magnitude are negatively correlated with the electoral fortunes of the FN, while unemployment and the effective number of party lists are positively correlated with the success of the FN in the regional elections. The variable that indicates the share of non-European immigrants does not provide additional explanatory power in a statistically significant way.     

Local effects of the new land rush: How capital inflows transformed rural Russia

Rising global prices for agricultural commodities have led to the inflow of capital to rural economies and to transfers of land ownership to new agricultural operators (NAOs) in developing and post‐Soviet countries. How capital inflows affect rural communities is often explained with the variable of institutional strength, an explanation aligned with the good governance approach to economic development: Capital inflows have positive developmental effects, if strong domestic institutions vet land deals and regulate NAOs. Contra the focus on institutional parameters as exogenous variables, this article highlights the role of political projects in shaping local outcomes and driving institutional change. Evolving political priorities are important to understand domestic rural transformations because they lead to interventions that privilege some actors as agents of change, while others are sidelined—hence transforming local economies. This theoretical suggestion is based on a study of Russia's rural transformation that followed a significant influx of capital.     

Social movements and the changing structure of political opportunity in the European union 1

To the extent that European integration results in the decline in the importance of the nation‐state as the exclusive seat of formal political power, we can expect attendant changes in those forms of interest aggregation and articulation historically linked to the state. This article suggests that a polity characterised by multi‐level governance is emerging in Europe and that this poses a set of new constraints and opportunities for groups that wish to influence political decisions. We argue that group strategy in response to this is a function of: (1) the structure of political opportunities facing a group in the EU; and (2) inherited institutions and ideologies that constrain the capacity of a group to exploit those opportunities. We use this framework to analyse the effect of European integration on four groups: the labour movement, regional movements, the environmental movement and the anti‐nuclear movement.     

The emergence of two-tier welfare in Africa: Marginalization or an opportunity for reform?

The emergence of two-tier welfare in Africa has been defined by two interconnected developments. Firstly, a growing understanding that ‘African famine’ is a complex and deep-seated problem, a problem which, in many cases, combines political, environmental-economic and conflict factors. Secondly, in response to this situation a world historic internationalization of public welfare has occurred. Whilst some of the financial aspects of this intervention, in the shape of World Bank, International Monetary Fund and bilateral programmes, have received attention, the simultaneous spread of donor/non-government organization relief-based safety nets has been relatively neglected. During the 1990s, however, policy debate will increasingly centre upon the adequacy or appropriateness of the latter in relation to the modalities of the African crisis. This paper, by first sketching the nature of this crisis, seeks to contribute to this debate by drawing attention to the contradictions and limitations within the emerging safety net system.