6:10: Trey Grayson welcomes Rendell to the forum. “Rendell was called one of America’s most interesting mayor.”

6:15: “Students all day have asked me advice about politics. Don’t run for an office people know you don’t want to hold.” -Rendell

6:20: If you like being at the center of the action, you’d be a mayor. If you do it well, the citizens will come to trust you and believe that you can do anything. If there’s a meteor heading towards the city, people would look to you. However, being governor gave me the resources necessary to reform education.

6:22: Trey Grayson asks Rendell about education.

6:23: Education is the key to economic development, and if we want to have a good economy 20 years down the road, we better find ways to improve our educational system. My best achievement was to raise funds for education. Pennsylvania 8th graders were able to achieve high marks after we allocated more funds to education. We did a good job doing it. We didn’t just do it by raising money, but everyone knows that quality Pre-K education makes a big difference in K-12 education.

6:27: “I raised the second highest tax increase in the history of Pennsylvania. We did something, and the lesson is that people don’t care that you spend money as long as there’s a return from the investment. People need to seen the tangible results. We tax and we cut.” -Rendell

6:28: Trey Grayson asks “How would you have handled the stimulus bill if you were elected President in 2008?”

6:32: “The President talked to us about the stimulus plan, and I know vice president Biden very well. I told him that the President now has an 81% approval rating. If Congress wants to load it up with Social Welfare stuff, make sure to get it passed quickly. Have it on the President’s desk as quickly as possible, and sign the stimulus bill! No one can say that President Obama did nothing to increase jobs.” -Rendell

6:34: If you ask people on the streets of Boston whether they got a tax break from the Obama administration, what do you think the people would have said? You have to give people money to spend in order to stimulate the economy. Why didn’t the Obama administration do that? Because the economists convinced Obama that if people got checks for $800, they would have saved it instead of spend it.

6:34: Trey Grayson asks Rendell what he would say to Obama, and what constituents should hear.

6: 38: Obama has done some terrific things that he didn’t get credit for. Many people who voted for Health Care ran away from it in 2010. A lot of people love what the healthcare bill will do for them and their family. Credit card reform was a great achievement. The Occupy Wall Street movement has a good point. There is an explosive gap between the rich and the poor, and something’s got to be done about it.

6:40:“It is time to tell people the truth, and if we do that, it’s not class warfare, it’s fact. It’s fact that we have to change. We have to change how taxes are done.” -Rendell

6:42: President Obama can win if: 1) Economy turns around 2) If Republican nominates someone that’s one the wacky side, which is almost everyone 3) If Republican Congress continues to stumble on taxes, budget, and jobs.

6:43: Trey Grayson opens it up for Q&A.

6:43: Question: What role do you think the national government has in education, if at all?

6:47: “I think the federal government has a great role in education. I think the government should focus mainly on the early stage of education (Pre-K), because the most important time to invest is when the foundation is being laid. Reward progress, and reward achievement.” -Rendell

6:50: Question: You’ve advocated a lot for infrastructure spending, I was curious about your thoughts on spending on railroads.

6:54: It’s absolute essential that we do this, infrastructure is crumbling. They just ranked us a month ago as 15th in the world, our railways are 18th in the world, and our air infrastructure is 32nd in the world, behind countries like Chile and Panama. It’s killing our economy because goods movement is so important right now. Infrastructure is the single best job producer. We should build railway where there’s density in population. Spend money, but spend it wisely!

7:02: Question: What kind of advice would you give to city governments in order to solve problems of the average citizen having mortgages underwater and debt?

7:08: “The weakest part of my resume is finance. What I can tell you is to get your most creative experts in the room, and figure out how to help the people who are in trouble. Let people know you’re doing it. I’m not saying that we should become a welfare agency. There are people out there who know about this stuff, and we should use them in order to better the current situation.” -Rendell 

7:12: Question from Trey Grayson: What’s up with the Eagles?

7:13: “Eagles went for the big names, and made a big mistake. They didn’t address linebacker, and they didn’t address offensive line.” -Rendell

7:15: Crowd applauded Ed Rendell and thanked him for speaking at the JFK Jr. Forum.

“I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” With this declaration, Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) summed up the philosophy with which white evangelical Christians have long identified. Yet the ordering has sometimes seemed the reverse of Pence’s. Since 1980, born-again Christians have been among the Republican Party’s most faithful stalwarts, favoring the GOP with three-quarters of their vote in 2004. It has become a political cliché to say that evangelicals are conservative, mainly concerned with social issues like abortion and gay marriage, and hold no potential interest for the Democratic Party.

Yet, for a growing number of young Christian evangelicals, party identification means less than ever before, and the religious right’s hold is not so strong. Members of this millennial generation hold the same pattern of religious beliefs as their parents, but emphasize a broader range of social issues, and constitute far more of a swing constituency. Evangelicals may never be a base constituency for the Democratic Party, but if this trend holds, born-again Christians will no longer be a guaranteed conservative and Republican force.

It’s Not Just About Abortion

Although young evangelicals view politics differently from their parents, their disagreements are on the level of prioritization, not actual opinion. “[Young evangelicals] still care very deeply about issues of life and family, but their agenda is not confined to those two issues,” Aaron Graham, national field director of Sojourners, a progressive Christian organization, told the HPR. As Graham pointed out, the difference is one of emphasis. “Issues of poverty are very central” to younger evangelicals, Graham said, as well as “issues of war and peace.”

These concerns come at the expense of traditional wedge issues. Jeremiah Lorrig, deputy director of Generation Joshua, an evangelical youth political organization, agreed with Graham. He explained, “Young evangelicals, they’ll talk about more issues. Young evangelicals take up the issues of sex trafficking, being good stewards of the environment.” These new emphases seem to represent opportunities for Democrats to reach a once-elusive Republican constituency.

But still, it would be misleading to say that young evangelicals have totally abandoned the social views of their parents. On abortion, the foundational concern of the religious right, young evangelicals may be even more conservative than the preceding generation. A 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 70 percent of young evangelicals wanted tougher abortion restrictions, compared to 55 percent of evangelicals over 30.

Nonetheless, this new generation differs from older ones in that they place far less emphasis on social issues. Indeed, according to a poll by Public Religion Research, two-thirds of evangelicals under 35 are willing to vote for candidates who disagree with them on abortion. Although young evangelicals have not abandoned social issues, neither do they impose litmus tests before they vote.

Explaining the Shift

Young evangelicals are shifting politically for many reasons, but the most salient factors include their disillusionment with the Republican Party and a shift in priorities by evangelical leaders, as well as the Democrats’ outreach to religious voters. After decades of identification with the Republican Party, some members of the evangelical movement appear unsatisfied with the results. They feel that Republicans have used them as “a means to an end,” said Graham. “Some of the leadership has been disillusioned with their affiliation with the Republican Party … because they put too much trust in a political organization, rather than standing up for the principles,” Lorrig agreed.

As a response to their perceived abandonment by Republicans, evangelical leaders have chosen to emphasize different issues, or even eschew party politics altogether. “There has been a set of leaders who provided a bridge from the almost single-issue ethics of the religious right and this new broader social-justice orientation of the younger generation,” Harvard Divinity School professor Ronald Thiemann explained. Thiemann cites Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, and Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church, all of whom have worked on HIV/AIDS in Africa, as exemplars of this shift.

Aiding the process of realignment, the Democratic Party has actively sought to take advantage of the changes within the evangelical movement. “It had been an article of faith in the Democratic Party for years that evangelicals were Republican voters, so it would be a waste of time to reach out,” Amy Sullivan, author of The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats are Closing the God Gap, told the HPR. Noting the social-justice emphases of young evangelicals, however, Democrats have begun to question their earlier assumptions. The Obama presidential campaign in particular made sustained efforts to court born-again Christians. “They didn’t necessarily change their messages at all. In most cases, it was simply a matter of showing up and talking to evangelicals,” said Sullivan. The campaign was rewarded with the largest-ever evangelical vote for a Democratic candidate, double the number from four years before.

Becoming Party-Neutral

Young evangelicals are not only shifting their voting patterns; they are changing the way they approach politics itself. “I think that you are going to see a loosening of the ties between any political party and the kinds of social and ethical issues that young evangelicals are interested in,” Thiemann remarked. The loosening may already be underway. In 2005, according to the Pew survey, 55 percent of evangelicals under 29 identified themselves as Republicans. Just two years later, only 40 percent responded the same way, with most of the balance joining the “Independent” column.

Indeed, evangelical youth may well be abandoning politics and partisanship in favor of party-neutral activism. In recent years, said Sullivan, “we’ve seen more kids graduating from Christian colleges and going into the Peace Corps or Teach for America. This is becoming the preferred form of political expression for young evangelicals, rather than rising through the ranks of the Young Republicans.” The shift away from politics appears to offer significant benefits for evangelicals. As Thiemann pointed out, “[non-profits] don’t require the sacrifice of one’s religious convictions to the aims of a political party or to electoral politics.”

Will It Last?

Although future elections may complicate the trend, one thing seems certain: young white evangelical Christians are no longer a guaranteed conservative voting bloc. Yet the extent to which they will truly shift left remains up in the air. As Graham put it, “Whether this is a long-term trend or not really depends on how the Democratic and Republican parties respond to evangelicals’ broader agenda.” Democrats would be strategically wise to heed the evangelical voice, and Republicans silly not to make shifts of their own. Since evangelicals make up 26 percent of the electorate, both parties will continue to watch how religious youth express their faith through politics.

Rob Lothman ’13 and Kristen Eberts  ’13 are Contributing Writers.

Photo Credit: Flickr (Steve Snodgrass)

According to the American Religious Identification Survey, the percentage of Americans affiliating with no religion has climbed from 8% in 1990, to 15% to 2008. In part, this growth is no doubt due to increased organizational efforts among the religiously unaffiliated. Although factions like atheists, agnostics, and secularists can sometimes differ in their emphases, they have adopted similar strategies in harnessing the media and introducing their aims to the public. Still, nonbelievers face a major challenge: they are one of the most widely distrusted and politically powerless groups in American society. American nonbelievers have made significant strides over the past decade, but their political coming-of-age still lies in the future.

Irreligion in the United States--Click to Enlarge

Religious skepticism has always been relatively prominent in America, according to Harvard Divinity School professor Diane Moore, because of our constitutionally protected freedoms of speech and religion. Moore explained that in democracies, citizens “have the right to believe what they will, to bring those beliefs into the public sphere.” New platforms of communication have built upon this permissive constitutional culture. Daniel Dennett, a Tufts philosophy professor and a leading so-called “New Atheist,” told the HPR, “It’s no coincidence that this [period of growth for nonbelievers] is also the time period that we have the rise of the Internet and the opening-up of information avenues, this democratization of information.” As Dennett explained, religion has a strong communal component, and nonbelievers, often too scattered to create their own physical community, have used the Internet to build a virtual one.

More recently, a series of accessible, aggressive books denouncing religion as a “delusion” that “poisons everything” has propelled non-belief into the public consciousness like never before. The books of the “New Atheists”—Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Dennett—became international bestsellers and prompted a lot of heated rhetoric and a slew of rebuttals from religious apologists.

According to Dennett, the most important effect of this media firestorm is that it “helped to open up the discussion” on the validity of religious belief and its effect on society. Despite criticism of the often-strident rhetoric of these writers, media coverage has probably aided their cause. “It has both created new believers and also encouraged many people who were silent,” Dennett explained. “It has become … common to just candidly say, ‘No, I’m not a believer at all.’” The hope of many nonbelievers is that greater openness and communication will accelerate the growth of the last two decades. “You just can’t isolate [people’s] informational intake anymore,” Dennett said.

In God We Trusted?

Non-belief’s recent growth is all the more remarkable considering the persisting stigmatization of atheism in American society. A 2006 University of Minnesota poll revealed that atheists are the most distrusted minority in the country. About 40 percent of respondents said that atheists “do not agree at all with my vision of American society,” and nearly half would disapprove of their child marrying an atheist. Much of this stigma is left over from the Cold War. Susan Jacoby, in her 2004 best-seller Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, documented the Cold War-era association of atheism with Communism. American society long defined itself in opposition to the atheistic, church-closing Soviet Union.

Anti-Communist religious fervor led to the insertion of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and made “in God We Trust” the national motto in 1956. Despite the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of nonbelievers, inchoate prejudice against atheists remains widespread. Dennett explained, “There’s still … large pockets of the nation where if you say [you’re an atheist] you’re basically saying you’re an evil and criminal sort of person.” However, he continued optimistically, “that’s changing, and that’s changing rapidly.” Still, the prejudice remains so deep-rooted in American society that a 2007 Gallup poll showed that 53% of Americans would not vote for an atheist for president, more than said the same about any other minority group.

Strategies for a New Era?

To combat stereotypes that portray them as immoral and hedonistic, and to uphold the separation of church and state, non-believing groups have banded together to try to strengthen their collective political voice. The Secular Coalition for America, founded in 2002 as an umbrella group uniting several smaller organizations, seeks to be the nonbeliever’s voice in Washington. “Essentially, the plan really seeks to bring secular Americans to their proper place in American life,” Sean Faircloth, the SCA’s executive director, told the HPR. Faircloth said that the SCA is not single-mindedly anti-religious. “We want to have a whole Chinese menu of issues … so that people can come to us and say ‘this is the issue that makes me feel impassioned.’ But if that doesn’t work, here’s nine more.”

Despite the existence of many other organizations that claim to speak for a broad coalition of nonbelievers, Faircloth insisted that “what is really exciting about Secular Coalition for America is that for the first time … these groups have coalesced in a way that unites them. And the way is public policy.” To that end, the SCA tries to get its membership motivated about concrete issues, not abstract debates. “When it comes down to the issues, like should a [sick] child … die because of the religious view of their parents, immediately everybody unites,” Faircloth said.

On a more localized level, another umbrella group, the United Coalition of Reason, has attempted to unify the non-believing communities of many cities,  encouraging cooperation and coordination between existing organizations. Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, a board member of the United Coalition of Reason, explained, “After we set up BostonCoR, we realized there was a Humanist event going on here nearly every day.” UnitedCoR buys these pre-existing groups ad space, like the “Good without God” billboards. By increasing their visibility, United CoR hopes to accomplish the same goal as the SCA: to leverage the growth of nonbelievers into increased tolerance and acceptance in the public arena.

The Future of Good Without God

Nonbelievers have always been controversial in the United States, and though their numbers are growing, the stigma against them has proven resilient. Yet nonbelievers may also hold some cards in their favor. According to the Pew Forum, 25 percent of 18-to-29 year-olds are nonreligious, and as that cohort becomes more civically active, it could contribute to a stronger secular political movement. Indeed, this younger generation will come into maturity as the Cold War-inspired generation begins to decline. Thus non-belief seems to hold an important demographic advantage. Whether or not the growing unity of non-believing Americans will hold in the years to come remains uncertain, but it is unquestionable that more Americans than ever are making it clear that they can be good without God.

Jimmy Bohnslav ‘13 and Georgia Stasinopoulos ’13 are Contributing Writers.

It has been over a year since President Obama lifted the bans that his predecessor placed on federal funding for stem cell research. At the time, scientific researchers praised his decision; the consensus in the scientific community is that embryonic stem cells will play a crucial role in future medical breakthroughs. But the politics have not been put to rest: significant restrictions on research still remain, and the use of embryonic stem cells still sparks the same ethical debates as ever. Continuing limitations and a lack of support for any major changes to the status quo are likely to hinder scientific progress in the near future. Yet despite scientists’ frustration with policymakers’ lack of scientific expertise and suspicion of research that may lead to life-saving cures, politicians have an important role to play in overseeing  researchers and ensuring that ethical questions are not overlooked by an insular scientific community.

Meeting the Standards

Although partisan polarization is likely to prevent reform of stem cell policy in Congress, some experts have put faith in the president’s ability to issue executive orders. Andrew Siegel, a professor at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University, told the HPR, “We really don’t need bipartisanship for this. As far as stem cells go, most of this is done by executive order. So I don’t think the current political atmosphere has much of an impact.”

But even after President Obama’s executive order lifted Bush-era bans, significant restrictions on stem cell research remain in place. Many argue, for instance, that the National Institute of Health’s review policy is too demanding. According to NIH guidelines, research may only be conducted on cells from approved stem cell lines that are part of the NIH’s Stem Cell Registry. It is illegal to create or destroy other human embryos for research. Furthermore, the NIH placed a freeze on research of stem cell lines that existed prior to Bush’s presidency, as many worried that these lines would not pass the NIH’s current standards.

A Defiant Status Quo

Stem cell researchers also face a mixed political climate at the state level.  During the Bush years, eight states provided their own funding for research, while some right-leaning states are currently in the process of considering legislation to define embryos as people. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, told the HPR, “[This issue] is highly important to a small but powerful subgroup in the Republican Party. All the controversial [social] issues—stem cells, abortion, cloning, same-sex marriage—are very important to them.”

Immediate changes in national legislation are unlikely. Siegel explained that “research involving destruction of embryos may be difficult, especially after the recent changes in abortion funding, but Obama most likely won’t be promoting this anyway, as there really isn’t much momentum for [embryo-destroying research].” For the time being, stem cell researchers can expect more of the status quo.

The Line Between Science and State

Although valuable stem cell research can sometimes get caught in bureaucratic red tape, the government plays an important role as an overseer of this research. Indeed, for an issue that involves so many ethical questions, it may be best to get input from people outside the scientific community who can see research from another angle. Sterner explained, “Stem cells, cloning, genetic enhancement—this all falls into an ethical category. People will have quite different views. We need to recognize that in a pluralistic society, at a political level, all views have to be acknowledged.” Congress and state legislatures provide  an appropriate forum in which these viewpoints can be presented in a relatively civilized fashion.

Politicians, however, must rely on scientists to make informed decisions about funding. As Siegel argued, “It is critically important that policy be informed by good understanding of the science. You really need to understand what your funding is being used for.” Siegel is confident that federal policymakers will take this challenge seriously. “Congress will call on sources for expertise, and people will testify and work with congressional committees.”

Despite widespread yearning for a more supportive approach to stem-cell research at the federal level, the bioethical issues at the frontiers of science make research a legitimate question for legislators, review boards, and ethics committees. Progress on stem cell research may be slow in coming, but on an issue so controversial, incremental gains may be more expedient than radical policy changes which could provoke a grassroots backlash.

John Prince ‘13 is a Staff Writer.

Photo Credit: Flickr (amandabhslater)

Anonymity and political discussion in the 21st century seems so second nature; anonymous comments and discussions on blogs, news sites, or social media sites are the modern norm. But this has created serious issues and lowered the level of discussion to something much less thoughtful and democratic and instead rather vile and unproductive.

In the same day The New York Times reported this new proposal by the Democrats, they reported how a number of news sites are moving away from anonymous commenting. Major publications such as The Washington Post and the Times have each started or are highly weighing changes to their websites’ policies that would transition commenting to involve real names and real identities. The article describes the case of online publication The Huffington Post:

The Huffington Post soon will announce changes, including ranking commenters based in part on how well other readers know and trust their writing.

“Anonymity is just the way things are done. It’s an accepted part of the Internet, but there’s no question that people hide behind anonymity to make vile or controversial comments,” said Arianna Huffington, a founder of The Huffington Post. “I feel that this is almost like an education process. As the rules of the road are changing and the Internet is growing up, the trend is away from anonymity.”

The article continued with a quote from William Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia’s journalism school:

“But a lot of comment boards turn into the equivalent of a barroom brawl, with most of the participants having blood-alcohol levels of 0.10 or higher,” he said. “People who might have something useful to say are less willing to participate in boards where the tomatoes are being thrown.”

These changes are largely driven by a desire to change the quality of discussion (yes, in part to attract controversy-fearing advertisers), but not by legal issues. Lawyers at a recent conference at Harvard’s Berkman Center stated that unlike in print where publications are held liable for the factuality of everything that is published, including third-party content like letters to the editor, the same does not hold online. Comments on articles, even if filtered through well-intentioned editing for inappropriate content, is covered by a broad statue called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which removes publisher liability for all defamatory and even factually false comments. Publications generally do not even have to remove these comments under court order. This environment has allowed websites to harbor these anonymous discussions that allow racist, vile, and hateful comments to be posted without fear of any consequences. (An example outside of politics of a Section 230 case: AutoAdmit).

And personally, as a person who finds the work of Robert Putnam quite compelling, I see this through the lens of social capital. Having few incentives to create ties and communities – increase social capital through civil society, in Putnam’s words – can have degrading effects on a community beyond the simple destruction of civil discourse. It is certainly too early to start ringing the bells of social destruction as one might try based on this argument, but the negative consequences are certainly cropping up.

Returning to the proposal for campaign finance reform: these changes are a positive sign to backtrack on democratic forums that need to be centers for legitimate thinking and conversation, not vileness and ignorance.

I certainly hear the critics who may say that these changes may silence a minority who, through social pressures or intimidation through violence will become unable to deliver their message. Those Democrats making the proposal know this all too well having become targets of Tea Party violence and racism. However, the anonymity is allowing many of those racist and destructive message to come through that is already silencing those groups. This proposed change – while not enough for thorough campaign finance reform after the Supreme Court’s recent decision on the subject – is more positive than negative.

Photo credit: Stian Eikeland/Flickr

If Saakashvili sounds like an extremist, he has good reason to. His public address, which took place at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum (co-hosted by the Institute of Politics and the Harvard Black Sea Security Program), contained clear anti-Russian overtones, and several references to the 2008 Russian invasion of South Ossetia. Nevertheless, his talk appeared – at least to me – eminently reasonable, and it re-affirmed his role as the beacon for the democratization of the post-Soviet bloc.

For those who are not entirely familiar with Saakashvili (even David Ellwood, the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, had some trouble pronouncing his name during the introduction), a bit of context is important. As the democratically elected leader of Georgia since 2004, he has presided over the fastest-growing Eastern European economy, and implemented a series of reforms aimed at strengthening the rule of law, expanding economic freedom, and institutionalizing democracy.

While he spent most of his time expounding on Georgia’s advances during his tenure, some of the statistics he mentioned are worth repeating. Investment has accelerated – despite the downturn, Georgia’s growing about 5-7% of GDP, and was the first Eastern European country to regain its credit ranking from the World Bank after the crisis. Rule of law has vastly increased, with the public’s trust in the police force increasing from five percent in 2004 to over eighty percent today (higher than Denmark or Sweden). Public perception of corruption has fallen from around eighty percent to less than one.

These hard numbers reveal the core of Saakashvili’s contention: look at us and see what we’ve done. The most important reason why Georgia ought to serve as a model for the rest of the Eastern bloc, he claimed, was because it is still standing after Russia’s military occupation. Russia deliberately left the border crossing open with Azerbaijan so that Georgian citizens could flee the country, but virtually no one did. Likewise, his claims about economic growth were tempered with a caveat: what matters is not what he says, but what investors think – and “almost 100%” of Georgia’s unprecedented growth is investment-driven.

Saakashvili sounds like he knows what he’s doing. His talk emphasized the lynchpin of his project as social transformation and civic engagement, what many political scientists consider essential to state-building. His free-market dogma stood side-by-side with his commitment to reduce the poverty rate, which he identified as a “national security” issue (and which he claims to have cut in half).

Of course, Saakashvili only presented his side of the story. There are many who have criticized his ultra-neoliberal, pro-U.S. agenda (hopefully some of whom will engage this post in the comments section). The broader lesson from his talk is that this debate must happen and it must happen soon. For Saakashvili – and many others – there is no way back to the “chaos” of the Soviet era. There is only one way forward: modernization. The question is how it can happen. Saakashvili’s rhetoric and policies might sound extremist to our sensitive liberal ears – he advised the audience to “never surrender” – but his passion was infectious. Georgia is a radical experiment in democracy. It would be incredibly irresponsible not to hear what it has to say.

Photo credit: Radio Free Europe

A critical look at China’s investment in Africa.

Despite China’s emergence as an economic powerhouse and political force, Western leaders still frequently decry China’s authoritarian regime, trade violations, and human rights abuses. But there is one region of the world that does not judge China by the same demanding standards: Africa.

The partnership suits both sides. Africa has tremendous natural resources and is in dire need of development. And China’s red-hot economy gives it a voracious appetite for resources. To Africa, Chinese investment is particularly appealing because the Chinese do not demand political preconditions before making economic agreements, assuring African leaders that their national autonomy will be maintained. This no-strings-attached policy allows African countries to make fuller use of their natural resources, and enables China to gain a significant competitive advantage over the United States.

Unless Western countries improve their African development strategies, China may soon become the dominant economic actor in this vital region.

The Courtship Period

Harvard Kennedy School professor Dwight Perkins explained that China’s interest in Africa traces back to the late 1960s and early ’70s, when the People’s Republic needed the votes of African countries to supplant Taiwan in the United Nations. That issue was resolved in the PRC’s favor, and China’s support for liberation movements in Africa further solidified its relationships in the region.

China’s interests evolved during the 1980s and ’90s as it began to develop rapidly under Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. Derek Scissors, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the HPR that China continues to boost its relations with Africa. “In 2005, China inaugurated an official ‘Going Out’ program, which was a function of it having a lot of money to spend—more than $2.5 trillion—and it went looking to acquire mineral resources all over the world,” he said. Africa became an obvious target, and China became a serious suitor.

Princeton Lyman, a former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, told the HPR that China has three main objectives for its investments: “to secure continued support from the Africa bloc in international forums; to increase their supply, and access to, natural resources; and to use Africa as an untapped area of investment, a food production source, and a way of expanding China’s entrepreneurial and business opportunities.”

Today, China is not only interested in mining and natural resources, but it also invests in almost every development sector, including telecommunications, energy, tourism, agribusiness, and electronics. These investments manifest themselves in several ways. For many ventures in mining and other industries, China builds much-needed infrastructure which remains in place even after Chinese workers depart. China also purchases part-ownership in companies, as well as debt from African governments. For instance, Lyman noted, China has a 40 percent equity position in Sudan’s major oil company, and the Angolan government borrows Chinese money collateralized by Angola’s oil supply.

The Investment Honeymoon

These arrangements offer advantages to both Chinese and Africans. Harvard economics professor Philippe Aghion told the HPR that China’s investments help African countries develop because they are “bringing

a culture of methods and a culture of work” to the region. Perkins agreed, adding that “China did not create the unstable African political conditions; China merely deals with governments that are willing to deal with it.” Lyman explained that, ultimately, “China is making an economic contribution and is happy to engage in infrastructure building and provide commercial loans and aid.”

Initially, Africans opened their arms to this investment because China offers enormous sums without demanding political liberalization. Lyman explained that “stability is the most important thing for the Chinese, and since democracy can be destabilizing, the Chinese attitude is to let Africans decide how to develop.” Aghion agreed, saying that “African countries often reject Western values and may fear China less, which does not judge them on freedom or levels of democracy.”

Thus it is not surprising that African leaders have enthusiastically embraced Chinese deals: “African leaders welcome Chinese involvement because they are a source of capital, a bargaining chip for use with the West, and an alternative when Africa is being pressured by Western donors,” said Lyman.

The Morning After

Nevertheless, the Chinese investments also have clear downsides for Africa. Scissors noted that China’s hypocritical development methods remain a major source of friction with African workers. Africans doubly suffer when “Chinese workers are brought into Africa to complete projects, but China…does not allow foreign workers into its own borders,” Scissors said.

In addition, almost nonexistent environmental regulations and lax labor standards mean that environmental destruction and displacement of the poor are common phenomena. China’s economic impact on Africa runs even deeper than these obvious problems. Lyman explained that Chinese goods being imported into Africa “have a negative impact on African industries that cannot compete, and this produces feelings of resentment.”

Some Africans worry that their economic potential is being undercut. Finally, Chinese transactions often lack transparency. Capital flowing into Africa is often “siphoned off by government officials,” Scissors noted, which increases already high levels of corruption and decreases the benefits of development for the poorest Africans. In short, the euphoria of the honeymoon may be wearing off.

Catching Africa on the Rebound

China’s “no preconditions” policy allows it to collaborate with African governments that Western countries find distasteful, and thus gives it a competitive edge over the United States in African development. An alternative to U.S. assistance and to the Western development model is attractive to Africans because it comes with a seemingly unlimited supply of funds and the long-term drawbacks are easy to ignore.

Chinese competition should nonetheless give Western countries motivation to improve their development relations with Africa.  As Scisssors said, the United States in particular “needs to raise its game. Democratization will sell itself if American assistance is superior to Chinese assistance in Africa.” Harvard political scientist Robert Bates suggested something similar: “the West has a lot to learn from China about how to handle relations with Africa, since benevolent aid has its place, but it’s certainly not the only thing that [the West] should be doing.” Aghion pointed to “institutions, technology transfers, schools, capital investment” as areas where Western assistance could be vital.

If the West does not improve its efforts at wooing Africa, however, China may soon be the sole significant actor in the region–a dire prospect for Western economic vitality and political values. The Chinese economic juggernaut has found a winning formula with its no-strings-attached investment model in Africa. The United States can learn from China’s example, but set a better one as well.

Why the politics of immigration must be reconciled with reality

Immigration always seems to be a hot-button topic, but despite President Bush’s second-term attempts at comprehensive reform and President Obama’s campaign promises to address the issue, the past two decades have seen little meaningful immigration legislation. While it is convenient to point to the economic recession and to Obama’s health care proposal as roadblocks to immigration reform, those explanations only scratch the surface. When it comes to immigration, politicians have shied away from asking the relevant questions. In order to enact meaningful reform, policymakers must shift the emphasis from border security to the underlying economic cause of illegal immigration, and they must evaluate undocumented workers’ true impact on the job market. Without concrete strategies for addressing those issues, immigration reform will continue to languish in political limbo.

BORDER BUILDUP?

Politicians have historically tackled the immigration issue by emphasizing border security, but this approach obscures the larger questions underlying the debate. As Kim Williams, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, explained, “What you find is that we’ve had this balance struck between employer sanctions and border security. Since we haven’t been able to deal with employer sanctions … it’s much easier to talk about cracking down on border enforcement.” But this security-focused approach cannot successfully address the flow of immigrants across the Mexican border, a complex pattern of movements based on economic conditions and even seasonal changes. Douglas Massey, a sociology professor at Princeton and the author of Beyond Smoke and Mirrors, told the HPR that “the paradoxical effect of the border fence … is to make people who are already here not go back because it is so hard to come in.” For immigration reform to go forward, then, policymakers must turn their focus to the economic incentives that bring people to this country in the first place. Poverty in Latin America is at least as important as border insecurity in explaining the influx of immigrants from our south.

Business concerns also factor prominently in the immigration debate. Perhaps the most immediately effective measure for reducing illegal immigration would be to impose a hefty fine on businesses for every undocumented worker they hire. Yet, Williams explained, “Since we have this laissez faire business attitude … at the end of the day what happens is we ratchet up border security.” Employment-related proposals are likely to be poorly received compared with “tough” crackdown measures on the borders. Furthermore, according to Massey, practices like subcontracting have made it harder to hold business accountable and discipline them when they employ illegal immigrants. Katherine Vargas, press secretary of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant-rights organization, told the HPR that she expects any reform bill “will have an employment verification system, an electronic system matching Social Security numbers with records.” Such a system may be both more effective and more humane than border security.

JOBS AVAILABLE

To enact effective immigration legislation, policymakers must also evaluate the true impact of illegal immigrants on the American jobs market.  Some politicians claim that—especially given our high unemployment rate—undocumented workers are taking up Americans’ jobs. “There are an estimated eight million jobs done by illegal immigrants. … We’ve seen in the past that when they started to do some enforcement, you saw American workers lining up to apply for the jobs,” Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told the HPR. Others, however, contend that migrant workers and American citizens occupy fundamentally different job markets.  According to Vargas, “The reality is that [unemployed Americans] are not in direct competition for jobs immigrants are doing. … You can’t expect a middle-class worker in Michigan to move and pick cherries or tomatoes in the California desert.”

At the end of the day, meaningful immigration reform will need to address the economic incentives that motivate hundreds of thousands of people to cross the border illegally each year. Politicians must look past politically palatable measures like border security; they must focus on long-term solutions and ask difficult questions about why immigrants come here, and what effect they have on American workers.

Jimmy Wu ’13 is the Circulation Manager.

Photo Credit: laverrue (Flickr)

Can you blog Tweets? I don’t know, but let’s give this a try. For those of you who couldn’t spend an hour and a half at the Halperin/Heilemann forum last night, here’s a minute-and-a-half tweet rundown….

Waiting for Halperin/Heilemann forum to start. Definitely not packed. Maybe people are over the 2008 gossip? What about midterm gossip?

Bill Purcell just said “Game Change” is a spicy smorgasbord. No one else seemed to think this was funny.

Halperin says if the 7th most interesting candidate in a race is Rudy Giuliani, you know it’s a good race.

flashback: remember “lipstick on a pig”?

moderator cuts to the chase quickly: should we trust your no-name sources? asks if they left anything out because it wasn’t well sourced

Heilemann says they paraphrased quotes to avoid nitpickers. But isn’t paraphrasing just as unfair sometimes?

Moderator Susan Gilligan: I’m not fazed by affairs. I mean, I lived in Europe. Big laughs. But John Edwards shocked her.

Heilemann: “John Edwards brought the crazy”

Heilemann: John Edwards got overtaken by his “ego monster.” Nice John Edwards went away.

“People are not any less interested in John Edwards than they are in Barack Obama at this point.” Uhh… no.

Moderator really really wants H and H to talk about Obama’s “self-doubt”

Obama aides were concerned in 07 that his heart wasn’t in it. They took him out and he asked if it was an intervention.

“McCain is at core a loner, a fighter pilot… It’s not until he’s at rock bottom that he’s suddenly happy again.”

“Sarah Palin.” Laughter… Halperin: “You know, there are some parts of the country where her name doesn’t elicit laughter.” More laughter.

Lieberman would have been both an unorthodox and an orthodox VP candidate. Hilarity.

Palin vetter just did some Lexis searches. “almost no background check.”

Halperin semi-justifies McCain’s choice by pointing to his “fighter pilot” mentality. Why can’t they just say “he’s a crazy man”?

McCain vetter to Palin: “Is your daughter going to get married?” Pause… “Is she going to get married tomorrow?”

Halperin: Obama too professorial. Me: Halperin too superficial.

Halperin: Obama doesn’t change course readily enough. In other words, he won’t stop pushing health care. Yeah, what’s wrong with that guy?

“To thine own self be true” is lesson from 2008. How poetic.

Also, “don’t look like Tina Fey.”

Uh oh… A Cambridgeite asking a question. Incomprehensible and disturbed.

Halperin: “I lost you when you mentioned Scott Brown. He’s so dreamy.”

Halperin: Obama should stop supporting TBTL orgs, and start worrying about the middle class. Right, the middle class loves depressions.

Reality check: Obama poll numbers have been at 50% for basically half a year.

Halperin shoots back to questioner: point out something gossipy from our book!

MH: People who say there’s gossip in the book should look up the definition. We just asked what happened.

JH: People are interested in “the human spectacle,” not the employer mandate.

Shorter Gilligan: Presidential contests are popularity contests. And we are the student newspaper editors.

Question: When do agreements with sources have to go out the window?

Halperin basically reiterates that you can’t get juicy stuff if you don’t promise anonymity.

Question from high school freshman: Why didn’t McCain give up when he wasn’t into it in 07?

JH: McCain never doubted he’d be a good president. Me: That makes one of us.

Furthermore, McCain just hated Obama. Thought he was green, all talk no walk, etc. “Personal animus drove him [McCain].”

Halperin jumps in to add McCain’s no quitter. Calls that admirable. What does he think of the personal animus? Not so admirable?

And that’s a wrap.

Photo credit: Harvard Institute of Politics

Hopefully they’ve got some juicy gossip that didn’t make it into the book!

Check it out at twitter.com/harvardpolitics!