Searching for a “Sound Negro Policy”: A Racial Agenda for the Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954

Abstract

The Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954 provided the foundation for slum clearance and urban renewal. Despite efforts to finesse the issue, race remained central to the formation and implementation of public policy. The Racial Relations Service (RRS), an institutional remnant of the New Deal, tried unsuccessfully to prevent local authorities from using the new federal resources to reinforce existing “ghettos.” Searching for a “sound Negro policy,” the RRS warned housing officials against pursuing such a course and offered bureaucratic resistance to individual projects deemed inimical to minority interests.

The coincidence of demographic and political change in the 1950s, the subsequent dismantling of the RRS, the reaction to the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and the passage of the Housing Act of 1954 all contributed to the use of urban renewal to create and sustain racially separate neighborhoods even as the civil rights movement gained momentum.     

The Evolution of Low‐Income Housing Policy, 1949 to 1999

Abstract

The evolution of low‐income housing policy during the past 50 years can be divided roughly into two segments: the first running from 1949 to the 1973 Nixon moratorium on subsidized production programs and the second from 1973 to the present, marked by a diminished federal leadership role and an increased state and local role. After tracing the rise of the federal leadership role represented in the Housing Acts of 1949 and 1968, this article focuses on the development of three important policy instruments that mark the devolution of housing policy: housing vouchers, housing block grants, and the Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit.

The three‐pronged strategy of vouchers, block grants, and tax credits has achieved reasonably good results and attracted an unusual degree of political consensus. A steady expansion of all three offers the most promising path to the “realization as soon as feasible” of the national housing goal.     

Taiwan's Quest for Independence: Progress on the Margins for Recognition of Statehood

This article describes many substantive transformations in politics, national self-identification, and economy Taiwan has undergone over the last decade and offers an alternative approach to expediting de jure state status. The transformations speak to significant progress ‘on the margins’ for attaining international recognition. The disjuncture between liberal democracies clinging to an antiquated ‘One-China’ foreign policy approach and the realties of the situation is widening. An alternative avenue to state recognition acknowledges advancements on the margins that justify Taiwan's recognition by others. At the same time, however, Taiwan must hold self-proclamation in abeyance until the breadth of recognition it receives becomes an irresistible force with which the PRC must reckon. The recent transformations coupled with mainland China's growing force projection capability indicate the time is ripe and appropriate to recognize Taiwan's statehood. The United States would be remiss in its avowed commitment and leadership responsibilities for democratic enlargement by not recognizing Taiwan.     

Networks in the Policy Process: An International Perspective

Abstract

This article (and more broadly this special issue) indicate that various types of policy networks, including governance networks, social networks, proto‐networks, and issue networks are defining the way that policy processes take place in various parts of the world. By focusing on network behavior in Africa, eastern Europe, and Denmark, it is clear that interorganizational cohesion, accesibility, trust generation, and “framing” issues are central to understanding network policy outcomes. Important implications regarding links between network characteristics and democracy are also suggested.     

Who Receives Media Attention in South Korea: Analysing Internal and External Pluralism in the News Coverage of Policy Debates

The mass media in democracies plays an important role in portraying key policy debates and viewpoints, ultimately shaping how citizens and political actors understand policy problems. How diverse are the policy perspectives represented in the news? Research in comparative political communication typically points to two ways through which pluralism is maintained in the news coverage of policy debates—internally and externally. Using 1,341 Dong-A and 1,205 Hankyoreh Daily front-page newspaper stories published in Korea in the year 2008, this article examines the circumstances under which internal and external pluralism in the news is limited in a democratic media system. Specifically, the article argues that a unique newsgathering process relying heavily on government sources for policy-relevant information, as well as relatively weak and unstable ties between news outlets and political/social organizations significantly restrict the diversity of voices appearing in the news in Korea. Such attention patterns offer a partial explanation for rapidly declining trust in print newspapers among the Korean public, and raise concerns about whose views are actually reflected in public policy debates in the news.     

Culture,Closeness, or Commerce? Policy Diffusion and Social Spending Dynamics

In a globalized world where trans‐ and supranational networks, communication and the exchange of information gain in importance, national political decision making processes do not occur independently from each other. Policy diffusion is assumed to become more and more relevant also for welfare state development. This paper explicitly focuses on the policy diffusion among 21 OECD countries in the period between 1980 and 2007 looking at social spending dynamics. The empirical findings of the spatial regressions clearly indicate that spatial patterns in social spending dynamics are driven by policy diffusion processes. In fact, economic interdependencies define the pathways of diffusion. Trading partners move in the same direction regarding social policy behavior. Surprisingly, cultural and geographical proximity are less relevant for the diffusion processes, at least in terms of social spending dynamics.     

EU Counterterrorism and the European Neighbourhood Policy: An Appraisal of the Southern Dimension

Terrorists trained on European soil, but originating from the Middle East, attacked the world's only superpower on September 11, 2001. Countering this terrorist threat has become an increasingly significant part of European Foreign Policy. At the same time, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has become an increasingly important dimension of European Foreign Policy. This article examines the extent to which counterterrorism has occupied a prominent place in the ENP, with a particular focus on the Southern Mediterranean ENP partners. The findings of this article suggest that, despite the commonly held view in the literature that security issues, in particular terrorism, have dominated the ENP agenda, counterterrorism cooperation between the European Union (EU) and its Southern Mediterranean ENP partners has not advanced as much as might have been expected.     

新型现代农业区建设与城乡一体化

在中国的城乡一体化进程中,提出了缩小城乡差距,城市支持农村,让农民平等参与现代化进程共享现代化成果的目标。该文在分析了推进城乡一体化发展中面临的现代农业的发展空间、城市无地可种和农村腹地边缘化等问题的基础上,提出了基本农田驻城发展都市休闲农业区,发展国营农场壮大现代农业区,村办农场同家庭承包有机结合复兴传统农业区,营造城乡三元结构有序推进城乡一体化发展的政策建议。     

The Second Time as Tragedy? Welfare Reform under Thatcher and the Coalition

The welfare reforms of the Coalition government are marked by the legacy of Thatcherism. Social security reforms in the 1980s reshaped the system towards reliance on means‐tested benefits. Negative policy feedback created by the opacity and perverse effects of means‐testing has made these benefits an easy target for the Coalition, at least so far as working age people are concerned. Different policy feedbacks affect policy towards old age pensions. The government is locked into promoting private pensions, and is extending this commitment with automatic enrolment. To make private pensions pay, it has to reverse the slide to means‐testing. The implication is that the pronounced bias against the working poor and in favour of older people in Coalition policy is not simply a matter of electoral preferences: rather, it reflects the political effects of previous policy decisions.     

Short notices

Eastern Asia: An Introductory History, edited by Colin Mackerras. Longman Cheshire Pty Ltd., Melbourne, 1992. xiv + 639 pp., illus., tables, maps. Aus $18.99. ISBN 0–582–87005–4.

Asia Pacific: A view of its role in the New World Order, by M.S. Dobbs‐Higginson. Longman Asia Ltd., Hong Kong, 1993. xxviii + 422 pp., maps. £25.00. ISBN 962–000105–2

Korea Briefing 1993: Festival of Korea, edited by Donald N. Clark. Westview Press, Boulder CO, San Francisco and Oxford, in cooperation with The Asia Society, 1993. x + 249 pp. £9.95 paperback. ISBN 0–8133–8770–1.

Southeast Asian Affairs 1992, edited by Daljit Singh. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1992. x + 364 pp. S$ 26.00. ISSN 0377–5437.