Martha Ross spoke to the Advisory Board of the Community Foundation for Prince George’s County, describing research on the suburbanization of poverty both nationally and in the Washington region.

Despite perceptions that economic distress is primarily a central city phenomenon, suburbs are home to increasing numbers of low-income families. She highlighted the need to strengthen the social service infrastructure in suburban areas.

Full Presentation on Poverty in the Washington-Area Suburbs » (PDF)

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As the first decade of the 2000s drew to a close, the two downturns that bookended the period, combined with slow job growth between, clearly took their toll on the nation’s less fortunate residents.

Over a ten-year span, the country saw the poor population grow by 12.3 million, driving the total number of Americans in poverty to a historic high of 46.2 million. By the end of the decade, over 15 percent of the nation’s population lived below the federal poverty line—$22,314 for a family of four in 2010—though these increases did not occur evenly throughout the country.

An analysis of data on neighborhood poverty from the 2005–09 American Community Surveys and Census 2000 reveals that:

After declining in the 1990s, the population in extreme-poverty neighborhoods—where at least 40 percent of individuals live below the poverty line—rose by one-third from 2000 to 2005–09. By the end of the period, 10.5 percent of poor people nationwide lived in such neighborhoods, up from 9.1 percent in 2000, but still well below the 14.1 percent rate in 1990.

Concentrated poverty nearly doubled in Midwestern metro areas from 2000 to 2005–09, and rose by one-third in Southern metro areas. The Great Lakes metro areas of Toledo, Youngstown, Detroit, and Dayton ranked among those experiencing the largest increases in concentrated poverty rates, while the South was home to metro areas posting both some of the largest increases (El Paso, Baton Rouge, and Jackson) and decreases (McAllen, Virginia Beach, and Charleston). At the same time, concentrated poverty declined in Western metro areas, a trend which may have reversed in the wake of the late 2000s housing crisis.

The population in extreme-poverty neighborhoods rose more than twice as fast in suburbs as in cities from 2000 to 2005–09. The same is true of poor residents in extreme-poverty tracts, who increased by 41 percent in suburbs, compared to 17 percent in cities. However, poor people in cities remain more than four times as likely to live in concentrated poverty as their suburban counterparts.

The shift of concentrated poverty to the Midwest and South in the 2000s altered the average demographic profile of extreme-poverty neighborhoods. Compared to 2000, residents of extreme-poverty neighborhoods in 2005–09 were more likely to be white, native-born, high school or college graduates, homeowners, and not receiving public assistance. However, black residents continued to comprise the largest share of the population in these neighborhoods (45 percent), and over two-thirds of residents had a high school diploma or less.

The recession-induced rise in poverty in the late 2000s likely further increased the concentration of poor individuals into neighborhoods of extreme poverty. While the concentrated poverty rate in large metro areas grew by half a percentage point between 2000 and 2005–09, estimates suggest the concentrated poverty rate rose by 3.5 percentage points in 2010 alone, to reach 15.1 percent. Some of the steepest estimated increases compared to 2005–09 occurred in Sun Belt metro areas like Cape Coral, Fresno, Modesto, and Palm Bay, and in Midwestern places like Indianapolis, Grand Rapids, and Akron.

These trends suggest the strong economy of the late 1990s did not permanently resolve the challenge of concentrated poverty. The slower economic growth of the 2000s, followed by the worst downturn in decades, led to increases in neighborhoods of extreme poverty once again throughout the nation, particularly in suburban and small metropolitan communities and in the Midwest. Policies that foster balanced and sustainable economic growth at the regional level, and that forge connections between growing clusters of low-income neighborhoods and regional economic opportunity, will be key to longer-term progress against concentrated disadvantage.

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• Concentrated Poverty Grips Communities

Buried in the middle of Table 1 in our new paper, Growth still is good for the poor, is a remarkable statistic: in a sample of 118 countries the average change in the income share of the bottom quintile of the population during the 2000s was 0.004. This is a small change, but what is striking is that it is positive. A common concern these days is that the people in the bottom part of the income distribution are being left behind. But these data show that there is no global trend in that direction. Similarly for the income share of the bottom 40%, there is no trend across countries, either in the 2000s or in earlier decades.

The other striking finding in this study, written together with Tatjana Kleineberg of Yale and Aart Kraay of the World Bank, is that changes in income share of the poor are uncorrelated with growth. In general, the relationship between the growth of mean income and the growth of income of the bottom 20% (or bottom 40%) is one-to-one; hence the title. Furthermore, about three-fourths of the variation in income of the poor across countries and over time can be accounted for by growth of average income. There are some interesting exceptions to the one-to-one relationship: Latin America in the 2000s had pro-poor growth with income of the poor rising significantly faster than mean income, while Asia had the opposite, pro-rich growth. We try to explain the changes in income share of the poor with a large number of variables covering dimensions of globalization, macroeconomic policy, and social policy (for example, government expenditure on health and education, primary school enrollment, or Gini coefficient on educational attainment). This part of the paper leads to a non-result: there are no robust correlates with changes in income shares.

What are the policy implications? I see both good news and bad news here. The fact that there is no worldwide trend towards lower income shares for the poor is good news. If there were such a trend it would suggest that globalization or some other general force was biased against the poor, and it would be hard to resist such a trend. But that is not the case. The rising inequality that we see in the U.S., for example, is not a general trend in rich countries. Other countries have found ways to maintain or increase the income share of the poor. It is also good news that growth will tend to raise the income of the poor proportionately, as it should always be possible to get most of the population to support a growth agenda. On the other hand, to the extent that we care about poverty reduction, it is bad news that we cannot explain what leads to changes in income shares of the poor and in particular what might bring about pro-poor growth.

Our findings do not imply that interventions aimed directly at the poor are pointless. But given the key role of growth in poverty reduction I favor interventions that build up the assets of the poor and enable them to participate in the market economy. A good example would be programs to ensure that the poor have access to maternal and child health services and early childhood education. Intuitively, you may think that such programs should shift income distribution in favor of the poor, and perhaps in some cases they do. But it also possible that the programs have powerful spillover benefits for the whole economy (more skilled labor, less crime – not to mention that the next potential Einstein will probably be born to a poor family in the developing world). If programs aimed at the poor have the side effect of stimulating the whole economy we should be happy about the higher growth, not disappointed that it is not pro-poor.

Read and download the paper at worldbank.org »

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray recently announced a plan to raise the minimum wage in his city to $15/hour over the next few years. The plan emerged from a special business/labor advisory committee, approved by 21 out of 24 its members, after four months of hearings, academic studies, and debate . The measure awaits approval by the City Council, but the move to $15/hour in Seattle seems well underway.

Seattle may be the first, but it won’t be the last, city to take this bold step. Granted, there were some peculiarities in Seattle’s case, including a $15/hour minimum wage ballot initiative that succeeded in the nearby city of SeaTac in November, and the election of a new Socialist Party Seattle City Council member who campaigned on the issue. But with inequality taking center stage as a political issue in big cities around the country, mayors, businesses, and labor advocates are watching Seattle closely.

However, the focus on big cities shouldn’t obscure the fact that wages are a function of regional economics. Seattle is indeed a big city, with 635,000 residents and (by our count) nearly 500,000 jobs. But it’s only part of King County, Washington, which has roughly 2 million residents and more than 1 million jobs. And King County is just one of three counties that make up the wider Seattle metropolitan area, with a population of 3.5 million and 1.8 million jobs.

While low-wage jobs are prevalent in Seattle, they’re even more prevalent in its nearby suburbs. Using data from the American Community Survey, my colleague Sid Kulkarni and I calculated that between 2009 and 2011, there were on average 149,000 jobs (full-time and part-time) in the city of Seattle that paid less than $15/hour. Over the same period, the remainder of King County had an average of 216,000 jobs that paid hourly wages below that threshold. These low-wage jobs represented 30 percent of all jobs in Seattle, and 34 percent of all jobs in the rest of King County.

It stands to reason that low-wage jobs are more suburban than high-wage jobs. Typically, the highest-value jobs in a region are located in central cities. High-paying sectors like finance, advanced health care, information technology (Redmond notwithstanding), and higher education tend to be more urban than suburban. Yes, cities also have lots of low-paying jobs in hospitality and retail, but so do suburbs. Those jobs tend to follow people, and most people in major metro areas live in suburbs. As my colleague Elizabeth Kneebone has found, as population sprawls, so does low-wage work.

To be sure, many people who live in the King County suburbs of Seattle will benefit from a $15/hour Seattle minimum wage, because they work in the city. According to a University of Washington study conducted for Mayor Murray’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee, fully four in 10 people who earn less than $15/hour working in Seattle jobs—and who would thus presumably benefit from the minimum wage increase—live outside of the city. That’s particularly important in a region like Greater Seattle, where suburbs are home to most of the poor. At the same time, the UW study finds that nearly as many Seattle residents in sub-$15/hour jobs work outside the city limits.

None of this amounts to an argument against Seattle taking the first step toward increasing its minimum wage. Residential and commercial demand is so strong in the city these days that Seattle may have more latitude than its suburbs to boost its minimum wage significantly without encountering negative employment effects. And maybe the city needs to move first in order to convince its neighbors (and itself) that a $15/hour minimum wage won’t make the sky fall.

But these statistics offer an important reminder that the problems of low wages, inequality, and social mobility do not stop at city borders. Ultimately, more cities might try acting in coordination with their surrounding jurisdictions, as the District of Columbia did with two Maryland counties, to boost their minimum wages and ameliorate any “border effects.” And as Seattle contemplates other key policy initiatives, like universal preschool and backfilling state cuts to transit funding (a King County ballot initiative failed last month), it should keep open the lines of communication with its neighbors, and act as one county—or region—where it can.

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Inequality remained a prominent theme in public debate during 2015, likely helped by the unexpected rise and resilience of democratic socialist Bernie Sanders' run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Although the labor market continued its slow recovery, wage growth remained fairly weak—especially for middle and low earners. The upper middle class continues to pull away from the middle, not least in terms of income and wealth.

But it has also become much clearer that inequality is a geographical issue, as much as a social and economic one. Whether the focus is on the more immediate matter of income inequality or the slower-burning issue of intergenerational mobility, there is huge variation between different places in the United States.

National income trends are important, of course. But they can often disguise deep differences by place. The income required to be ‘rich,’ at least by comparison to those around you, varies significantly between different cities, for example. A household income of $100,000 puts you on almost on the top rung (around the 95^th percentile) of the income ladder in Detroit. But to reach the same heights in San Jose, California, you’d need an income three times as great, according to calculations by my colleague Alan Berube.

There are also very large differences in the extent of income inequality in different metropolitan areas. Using the inequality measure used in another recent paper by Berube, the ratio between incomes at the 20^th percentile and the 95^th percentile, shows that while some cities have large gaps between rich and poor, others look almost Scandinavian in their egalitarian distributions. Here are the 20/95 ratios for the three most equal and unequal cities in the U.S.:

In a groundbreaking research paper in 2014, Raj Chetty and his team at the Equality of Opportunity Project at Harvard showed that rates of intergenerational income mobility also vary considerably between different cities. It was always a stretch to compare the U.S. to Denmark on this front, given the colossal differences between the countries. But such comparisons became virtually unconscionable once the variations within the U.S. become apparent.

This year, Chetty and his co-author Nathaniel Hendren went a step further and a big step closer to showing a causal impact of place on the prospects for children raised in different locations. Again relying on large administrative datasets, the two scholars were able to show the variation in earnings for the folk hailing from, say, Baltimore versus Baton Rouge.

Professor Chetty presented his new research at a Brookings event in June (which you can view here), just weeks after the eruption of protest and violence in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray. One striking finding was that the worst place in America to grow up, in terms of subsequent earnings, is Baltimore City. Critically, Chetty’s research design allows him to show that these differences do not reflect the characteristics of the people of Baltimore; but the characteristics of Baltimore itself. This downward effect on earnings is particularly bad for boys, as we highlighted in an earlier blog:

In related work, Chetty and his colleagues also show that children who move to a better place see an improvement in their own earnings—and that the younger they are when they move, the bigger the impact. The children of families who move as a result of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Moving to Opportunity program showed sizable improvements in their own outcomes, as Jonathan Rothwell highlighted in his blog, 'Sociology’s revenge: Moving to Opportunity (MTO) revisited.'

Race, place and opportunity

One of the findings from Chetty’s earlier work is that race, place, and opportunity intersect in important ways. Cities with more segregation, and those with larger black populations, tend to show weaker upward mobility patterns. In order to understand the obstacles to upward mobility, policymakers have to adopt both a place-conscious (Margery Turner) and a race-conscious perspective. This policy was the subject of another Brookings event in November, with contributions from the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, the Governor of Delaware, and the Mayor of Newton, Mass. (The event can still be viewed here; for my highlights see this piece.) Being poor and black is generally not the same as being poor and white. Being poor in Cleveland is not the same as being poor in Charlotte.

Many states and cities are upping their game on issues of equality and opportunity, for both bad and good reasons. The bad reason is the relative inertia of the federal government. The good reason is a growing recognition that many of the levers for improving opportunity lie in the hands of institutions and agents at the state and metro level. Colorado has adopted a life-cycle opportunity framework and is pioneering efforts to integrate health and social policy. Charlotte has a high-profile taskforce (which I advise) on improving opportunity. Cincinnati has pledged to lift 10,000 children out of poverty within five years. Louisville is leading a push on school desegregation. Kalamazoo is adding greater student supports to its existing promise of free college. Baltimore’s program to reduce infant mortality has shown remarkable success. Durham, N.C. has rolled out a universal home visiting program.

Many of these efforts are building on the emerging ideas around 'collective impact,' harnessing local resources of many kinds around a clearly-articulated, shared goal. Given the scholarship showing just how much particular places influences individual and broader outcomes, this is likely to be where much of the most important policy development will take place in coming years. In terms of equality—and especially equality of opportunity—we need to think local, and act local, too.

Midway through Hong Kong’s second public consultation on the method of electing the next chief executive (CE), both pro-democracy “pan-democrat” legislators and the Hong Kong government and Chinese Central government are still holding their cards close. Following the current public consultation, members of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council (LegCo) will cast an historic vote on political reform. Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, states that “the ultimate aim is the selection of the CE by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures” (Basic Law Art. 45). Pan-democrat LegCo members currently plan to vote against the eventual resolution on political reform, given their dissatisfaction with the reform process to date. Observers predict that passage of a resolution will happen only if the Hong Kong and Central governments can swing a few pan-democrats over to their side in the final hour.

The problem is a prickly one: Is it possible to design an electoral system that is sufficiently open and democratic in the eyes of the Hong Kong people and, at the same time, that guarantees to the Central Government that the elected leader of this special administrative region accepts the supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party? Even as politicians on each side reiterate the near “impossibility” of changing their positions (see e.g., RTHK Backchat discussion with Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen at 4:25), thought-leaders from Hong Kong’s universities are inventing creative proposals with the potential to break the deadlock.

The Ground Rules

A 2004 decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), China’s national legislature, interpreted the Basic Law to require a “Five-Step Process” in order to amend the selection method for the CE. Hong Kong is now between Steps 2 and 3.

• Step 1: The current CE must submit a report to the NPCSC on the need to amend the electoral system. That submission took place on July 15, 2014 after a five-month initial public consultation process. The CE’s report faced heavy criticism in Hong Kong for not accurately reflecting public opinion.
• Step 2: The NPCSC must issue a decision affirming the need for the amendment. The NPCSC announced that decision on August 31, 2014. It endorsed a system by which citizens may directly vote for the CE but imposed restrictive conditions on the nomination procedure of eligible candidates. The decision triggered 79 days of protest and civil disobedience – what activists and the media have referred to as the “Umbrella Movement.”
• Step 3: The Hong Kong government must introduce the political reform bill in LegCo, and two-thirds of legislators must endorse it. The vote in LegCo is scheduled to take place during the first half of 2015, although a precise date has not been set. The purpose of the second-round public consultation is to forge consensus behind political reform within the parameters set out in the August 31 NPCSC decision.
• Steps 4 and 5: In the event that LegCo endorses the bill, the CE must provide his consent and report the amendment to the NPCSC for its final approval.

If the bill does not receive two-thirds endorsement of LegCo (or if it does, but the NPCSC does not approve) then political reform would fail. Hong Kong would be left with the status quo, and Hong Kong people would lose the opportunity to vote for their chief executive for at least the next seven years.

Limited Room for Negotiation

The terms set out by the August 31 NPCSC decision limit the range of possible political reform options. For that reason, one of the core demands of the Umbrella Movement was to scrap the decision and re-start the Five-Step Process; that didn’t happen, however. In January 2015, the Hong Kong government issued a public consultation document framing the discussion in the lead up to the vote in LegCo. The consultation document hews closely to the NPCSC decision:

• The Nominating Committee (NC) will resemble the previous committee that elected the CE with the same number of members (1,200) belonging to the same limited number of subsectors (38). The Wall Street Journal recently described that committee as “a hodgepodge of special interests.” During the consultation, citizens may discuss adding new subsectors to make the committee more inclusive and representative (such as adding new subsectors to represent the interests of women or young voters), but restructuring will necessarily mean disrupting and eliminating the positions of existing subsectors or committee members. Therefore, the consultation document suggests these changes are unlikely to be achieved (Consultation Document, Chapter 3, Sec. 3.08 p. 10).
• The NC will nominate two to three candidates, and each candidate will require endorsement from at least half of the NC membership. (Given the difficulty of restructuring the subsectors or their electoral bases, these terms would effectively exclude any pan-democrats from nomination.) In order to make this more palatable, the consultation document proposes that citizens discuss a two-stage nomination process. In the first stage, a quorum of 100-150 committee members would “recommend” individuals for nomination. The committee would then elect the nominees from this recommended group (Consultation Document, Chapter 4, Sec. 4.09 p. 14). In theory, the meetings when recommendation and nomination votes take place could be staggered in order to allow campaigning and public debate. The idea is that NC members would take public opinion into consideration before casting their second vote.
• On the voting arrangements, citizens may discuss a “first-past-the-post” arrangement with either a single-round, two-round, or instant runoff vote systems (Consultation Document, Chapter 5, Sec. 5.06 p. 17-19).

Both sides in this negotiation have fired shots across the bow. At the launch of the second public consultation on January 7, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam remarked, “there is no room for any concessions or promises to be made in order to win over support from the pan-democratic members.” For their part, the pan-democrats vowed to boycott the public consultation and veto a resolution that conforms to these terms. They argue that the proposed method of electing the chief executive does not improve upon the status quo.

Most pan-democrat legislators are directly elected from geographical constituencies, and public opinion could provide legitimate grounds for shifting their position. According to polling by the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme last month, a plurality of respondents view the Hong Kong government’s proposal as neither a step forward nor a step backward for democracy. If the government were to commit to making the electoral system more democratic in the next CE election in 2022, a clear majority of respondents would then support the government’s plan.

Inventing Options and Finding Common Ground

The two-stage nomination mechanism in the government’s proposal is an acknowledgement that the NC ought to be responsive to public opinion. But without additional tinkering, this procedure does not materially change the incentives of NC members. What if the public had the power to reject the slate of candidates nominated by the committee?

Since the first public consultation, a few academics, including Simon Young at Hong Kong University (HKU), have considered at least two ways this could happen. An “active” approach would allow Hong Kong voters to cast blank votes and require a minimum percentage of affirmative votes for the winning candidate. A “passive” approach would require a minimum voter turnout rate for a valid election. NC members might then have to take public opinion into account.

Early last month, Albert Chen, also a professor at HKU and a legal advisor of the NPCSC, began to advocate publicly for a proposal that employs a ballot with a none-of-these-candidates option (see RTHK Jan. 13 edition of The Pulse). Under his proposal, if a majority of people vote for “none-of-these-candidates,” the slate of candidates put forward by the NC will be voided. When the public votes down the candidates, the NC could revert back to an election committee and choose a provisional CE. Alternatively, the Chief Secretary could assume CE duties during a six-month interim period prior to a new election (drawing upon Basic Law Art. 53). Chen argues that his proposal would give the Hong Kong people—not pan-democrat politicians—decision-making power to accept the new NC and its slate of candidates or to revert back to the status quo.

More recently, Johannes Chan, HKU professor and human rights advocate, floated a competing proposal that would provide voters with the option for negative voting. A 20 percent “no” vote for an otherwise leading candidate would trigger a re-vote. Between the first and second elections, the candidates would have additional time to campaign. If after the second election, still 20 percent of voters oppose the leading candidate, the candidate would be disqualified, and the NC would nominate new candidates. Given Hong Kong’s governance problems and increasing public polarization, the 20 percent veto ensures that no CE will be saddled with a substantial block of Hong Kong society affirmatively opposed to him or her from day one.

Albert Chen’s proposal received a tepid if supportive response in pro-Beijing quarters. Jasper Tsang, the Speaker of LegCo and member of the largest pro-establishment political party, and Rita Fan, a member of the NPCSC, affirmed their view that the none-of-these-candidates mechanism does not violate the Basic Law. While the government’s consultation document does not expressly mention the none-of-these-candidates concept, Hong Kong’s Justice Secretary indicated that the proposal should be considered. Starry Lee, another leader of the biggest pro-establishment party in LegCo, countered that technical difficulties and limited time for discussion would pose obstacles to the none-of-these-candidates ballot proposal.

Pan-democrats so far have tended to rebuff government overtures to engage on the topic. A few legislators, such as the Civic Party’s Ronny Tong, have been willing to engage (with Albert Chen on the Jan. 13 edition of The Pulse) but have reservations about what happens after a voided election, and feel that the threshold for public veto is too high. Law Chi-kwong, a founding member of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party and also a member of the HKU faculty, suggested that the winning candidate ought to receive an absolute majority of votes with blank votes counted. (E.g., when one candidate receives 45 percent, another receives 35 percent, and none-of-these-candidates receives 20 percent, that would lead to a void election.) However, other scholars associated with the Democratic Party have distanced themselves from the blank vote debate and Law’s statements.

The Merits of Blank Voting

The debate over blank and negative voting in Hong Kong unfolds in a global context where none-of-these-candidates has become an increasingly common political choice. Several democracies have institutionalized the practice. Proponents cite instrumental rationales, such as improved accountability and transparency. However, these benefits are not necessarily guaranteed. More broadly, people recognize the inherent value of the “no” vote as a form of political expression.

In the U.S. state of Nevada, for example, a none-of-these-candidates option has appeared on the ballot for all statewide and national elections since 1975. During the 2012 presidential cycle, the Secretary of State of Nevada argued that removing a none-of-these-candidates option would harm Nevada voters by taking away a “legitimate and meaningful ballot choice.” There is precedent for none-of-these-candidates winning a plurality of votes in a congressional primary; in that case, Republican Walden Earnhart finished behind the none-of-these-candidates option but still “won” the primary and got the nomination. More typically, the ballot option plays a “spoiler role.” In the 1998 Senate race, for example, 8,125 votes for none-of-these-candidates dwarfed the 395-vote margin between Harry Reid and John Ensign. This allowed Reid, the incumbent, to be re-elected.

It is hard to find examples where none-of-these-candidates has won a majority of the popular vote. Hong Kong’s pan-democrats may be right to question whether this possibility would meaningfully affect the calculus of the NC. Colombia is one of the few jurisdictions where blank votes can have institutional consequences. The right of citizens to cast a blank vote was established by the Colombian Constitution in 1991, and later codified in political reform statutes in 2003 and 2009. Similar to Albert Chen’s proposal in Hong Kong, if the number of blank votes equals a majority of the total number of votes cast, the election must be repeated. The original candidates cannot participate in the second election.

The Colombian experience suggests that the blank vote is more consequential in races with fewer candidates. Colombian voters have never nullified a slate of candidates at the national-level, where the field is crowded. In the city of Bello, however, the blank vote won the mayoral election in 2011. In that case, the electoral authority disqualified the one opposition candidate. This led to a one-man race and united all opposition forces around the blank vote in order to reject the establishment Conservative Party candidate. In the second round election, the replacement Conservative Party candidate (Carlos Alirio Muñoz López) won 59 percent of the vote. In the end, his party benefited with a resounding popular mandate. By this logic, the blank vote could matter in the two- to three-candidate race contemplated for Hong Kong.

Empirical evidence also suggests that local conditions in Hong Kong could support a relatively high turnout for none-of-these-candidates. Based on data from Spain and Italy, Chiara Superti at Harvard finds that blank voting is a sophisticated political choice, more likely to take place in municipalities with highly educated and politically engaged electorates. Hong Kong would qualify.

Beyond candidate selection, voting is a highly expressive act. A citizen’s vote is an expression of identity as well as a channel for protest. Echoing this view, the Supreme Court of India recently held that the country’s constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and expression confer on Indian citizens a right to reject all candidates and to exercise their right to affirmatively vote for none-of-these-candidates in secrecy. As a people who define themselves by “core values,” including freedom of expression, this resonates with Hongkongers. More fundamentally, the ballot serves a powerful safety-valve function. At the time universal suffrage was introduced in England and France, the vote was presented as a way to channel political turmoil into more moderate political expression—and this, too, resonates in Hong Kong today.

Views expressed in the article are the author's personal views.

Boris Nemtsov’s murder may be a turning point in current Russian history. Unfortunately, it is almost surely not a turn to the better, but one to something bad or to something even worse. This point needs to be made clear from the beginning. It is an illusion to think that this event will lead to anything positive, such as a backlash in the population at large against nationalistic rhetoric or even some kind of liberal revolution, or “Russian Spring.” 

Liberalism in Russia was left near-dead once Putin prevailed over the wave of protests in late 2011 and early 2012. The geopolitical conflict with the West over Ukraine—both Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions and the Western response of imposing sanctions—virtually guaranteed that liberal, democratic, pro-Western forces would remain irrelevant for now and, likely, for some years to come. Nemtsov’s murder only exacerbates this trend.

There are two probable scenarios going forward. Both begin with the realization that the most important conclusion from the Nemtsov murder is that it signals a lack of control by Putin over very dangerous elements in Russian society. Putin will respond by further tightening Kremlin control over Russian politics and society. The question is how forcefully and how successfully. In one scenario, Putin succeeds in stabilizing the political situation. This will result in an even more authoritarian, but somewhat stable, Russia. In the other, Putin fails to establish control and the result is a breakdown of all control and reversion to an even more extreme nationalism than now.

We do not know who murdered Boris Nemtsov. The most likely version is that it was rogue nationalist, anti-Maidan, forces. If so, this means that Putin has serious problems with his own security forces. They are either inexcusably negligent (because they allowed the murder to happen) or criminally complicit (if anyone inside the security forces in any way facilitated the crime).

Most everyone outside the Kremlin is obsessed with, as they say, the eternal Russian question of Kto vinovat—”Who is to blame?” Putin’s priorities are different. His first question is not, “Who did this?” but “Who let this happen?” So his primary concern is to solve the problem of the competence of and/or control over his security services.

Second, his main target now has to be extremist-nationalists inside Russia. They are the biggest threat to his regime, far greater than the demonstrators on Bolotnaya Square in 2011-2012. Despite the fact that it is the Kremlin itself that has been the biggest promoter of nationalism, it is aware that extreme nationalism is a danger. Last October, at the Valdai Club meeting in Sochi, Putin’s number two man, Sergey Ivanov, was asked about the threat of nationalist-extremists in Russia. He admitted there was a problem. “They do exist. They are a tiny minority. But they represent a clear risk. We need to think about that. And, especially, we need to do something about it. ... We have to make it clear to extremists that the law will be strictly enforced, and that committing illegal acts is a road that leads to nowhere.” And when we do act against those who violate the law, he said, “we will not be constrained by concerns about human rights.”

Event Information

Recent events in Taiwan, including the Sunflower Movement and the November 29 municipal elections in 2014, indicate changes in Taiwan’s political landscape. Political parties and candidates will have to adjust to changing public opinion and political trends as the January 2016 presidential and legislative elections approach. The two main parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), face both opportunities and challenges in disseminating their messages and garnering public support. The strategies that each party develops in order to capture the necessary votes and seats will be critical. 

On April 22, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings and Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies co-hosted a public forum to identify and analyze the politics behind the 2016 elections in Taiwan. Leading experts from Taiwan and the United States assessed the new forces and phenomena within Taiwan politics; how the election system itself may contribute to election outcomes, especially for the Legislative Yuan; and how the major parties must respond to emerging trends.

 Join the conversation on Twitter at #TaiwanElections

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• Taiwan’s shifting political landscape and the politics of the 2016 elections

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• Transcript (.pdf)

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• 20150422_taiwan_transcript

Amid anger and protests in Baltimore following the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray from a spinal injury sustained after being arrested by police, much of the discussion has focused on the poverty-ridden neighborhood in which Gray grew up (Sandtown-Winchester, on the city’s west side). Conversation has centered around the economic disadvantages that Gray, his peers, and so many young adults are facing in certain neighborhoods throughout Baltimore and in other U.S. metro areas.

Metropolitan Policy Program Fellow Jennifer Vey spoke yesterday with CNN’s Maggie Lake on the poverty and economic inequality prevalent in Baltimore—particularly in impoverished neighborhoods like that of Gray’s and throughout the country.

In the interview, Vey says that, “it’s important to look at the events of the last few days in Baltimore against a backdrop of poverty, of entrenched joblessness, of social disconnectedness that’s prevalent in many Baltimore neighborhoods…but that isn’t unique to Baltimore, and I think that’s a really important point here, that we really need to put these issues in a much broader national context.

“I think what this really indicates is we’ve been operating under an economic model for quite some time that clearly isn’t working for large numbers of people in this country.”

Vey also discusses how we can work to break the cycle:

“What we’re really focused on at Brookings is trying to understand how cities and metropolitan areas can really be trying to grow the types of advanced industries that create good jobs, that create more jobs, and also focusing on how then, people can connect back to that economy. What can we do to make sure that more people are participating in that economic growth as it happens?”

She goes on to say that investment in education, workforce programs, and infrastructure are all key in incorporating everyone into a prosperous economy.

To learn more about poverty in Baltimore, read this piece by Karl Alexander.

Dark clouds have gathered over Malaysia as a crisis deepens. Two weeks ago, the country witnessed a massive street protest - dubbed Bersih (lit: “clean”) - organized by a network of civil society groups agitating for electoral reform. This was in fact the fourth iteration of the Bersih protests (Bersih also mobilized in 2007, 2011, and 2012), and managed to draw tens of thousands of participants (the exact number varies depending on who you ask). On this occasion, the protest was a culmination of widespread popular indignation at a scandal involving 1MDB, a government-owned strategic investment firm that accrued losses amounting to approximately USD10 billion over a short period of time, and the controversial "donation" of USD700 million funneled to the ruling party through the personal bank accounts of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

All this is taking place against an inauspicious backdrop of sluggish economic growth, the depreciation of the Malaysian currency, and several exposes on the extravagant lifestyle of Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor.

How consequential was Bersih?

When Bersih first mobilized in 2007, it managed to harness a flood of dissatisfaction in opposition to the government of Abdullah Badawi, and contributed to major opposition political gains at the general election of 2008. The second and third protests have also been credited as contributing factors to further opposition inroads at the 2013 polls. Assessments of the latest iteration of Bersih however, have been more equivocal. On the one hand, Bersih 4.0 indicated that the movement can still draw huge crowds and give voice to popular discontent, which continues to grow. On the other hand, analysts have called attention in particular to the comparatively weak turnout of ethnic Malays at Bersih 4.0 compared to the previous protests. This is a crucial consideration that merits elaboration if Bersih is to be assessed as an instrument for change.

Given how Malaysian politics continues to set great store by ethnic identity, the support of the Malay majority demographic is integral for any social and political change to take place. By virtue of affirmative action, ethnic Malays are privileged recipients of scholarships and public sector jobs. Therein lies the problem for any social movement agitating for change. Years of conditioning through policy and propaganda have created a heavy reliance on the state, which in essence means UMNO (United Malays National Organisation), the dominant party in the ruling coalition which Prime Minister Najib helms as party president. While it is difficult to say conclusively that this explains the tepid reaction of ethnic Malays during the Bersih protests, it is not far-fetched to hypothesize that at least a contributing factor was the fear among recipients of scholarships and public sector employees that their benefits might be jeopardized (For example, I know that scholarship holders were sent letters "dissuading" them from participating in "political activities.").

Ultimately though, the most telling feature of the event may not have been the dearth of ethnic Malays but the presence of one particular Malay leader – Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s nonagenarian former prime minister and unlikely Bersih participant.

Hitherto a supporter of Prime Minister Najib, Mahathir has grown increasingly unhappy with the prime minister’s policies. According to Mahathir himself, attempts had been made to share his reservations with Najib in private, but they were rebuffed. Goes by this account, it is not surprising that Najib’s alleged snub prompted private reservations to crescendo into harsh public criticism. By the middle of 2014, Mahathir had assumed the role of Malaysia’s conscience to become one of the loudest critics of Najib. Asked to explain his criticisms, Mahathir reportedly responded: “I have no choice but to withdraw my support. This (referring to the act of privately reaching out to Najib) has not been effective so I have to criticize. Many policies, approaches, and actions taken by the government under Najib have destroyed interracial ties, the economy, and the country’s finances.”[1]

Today, it is Mahathir, Malaysia’s longest serving prime minister who was in office from 1981 to 2003, who is leading the charge to discredit Najib and have him removed from office for malfeasance. What explains Mahathir’s singleness of purpose to have Najib removed from power? Part of the answer may lie in Mahathir’s own record of political quarrels.

What lies beneath Mahathir’s attacks?

Mahathir is no stranger to bitter and bloody personal political battles. His interventions in Malaysian politics throughout his career in office are legion (and many Malaysians might also say, legendary). Longtime Malaysia watchers and critics have assailed Mahathir for his autocratic streak evident, for example, in how he emaciated the judiciary by contriving to have supreme court judges (and on one occasion, the Lord President himself) removed from office, incapacitated the institution of the monarchy by pushing legislation that further curtailed the already-limited powers of the constitutional monarch, and suppressed opposition parties and civil society by using internal security legislation against them.

Mahathir was no less ruthless within UMNO, where he brooked no opposition. The history of political contests in UMNO has his fingerprints all over it. In 1969, it was his provocations as a contumacious backbencher that precipitated the resignation of the respected founding prime minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman. In 1987, Mahathir weathered a challenge to his leadership of UMNO mounted by political rivals (the then deputy prime minister, Musa Hitam, and minister for international trade, Razaleigh Hamzah), turned the tables on them, and had them exiled into political wilderness. In 1998, Mahathir successfully fended off the ambitious Anwar Ibrahim by sacking him, and later having him arrested, charged, and eventually convicted for corruption and sodomy. Even when not directly involved, he was never content to be a bystander, choosing instead to either instigate or leverage power plays. In 1978, he played no small part in nudging Sulaiman Palestin to challenge then incumbent Hussein Onn for party presidency (a move that many Malaysian analysts agree signaled the beginning of the end for Hussein’s political career even though he managed to fend off Sulaiman’s challenge). In 1993, Mahathir did little to prop his then deputy, Ghafar Baba, who was crumbling under the challenge of a charismatic Malay nationalist and rising star by the name of Anwar Ibrahim. It was Mahathir's machinations in 2008 that forced Abdullah Badawi, his handpicked successor no less, to resign a year later.

All said, Mahathir had accomplished the signal feat of being involved in some way or other in almost every political crisis that has beset UMNO since 1969. Several observations can be drawn from this record to explain Mahathir’s present behavior. First, Mahathir has long been possessed of a drive to be at the center of power in UMNO and Malaysian politics. Second, he is also in possession of an acute survival instinct that has enabled the über-politician to see off a string of challengers and ensured his political survival at the helm for 22 years. Finally, one can also plausibly surmise that at the core of his recent interventions is the desire – not unlike others who have held any high office for 22 years - to protect his legacy. Therein lie the rub, for it is not difficult to imagine that Mahathir might have deemed his legacy challenged by Anwar in 1998, ignored by Abdullah Badawi in 2008, and now, disregarded by Najib.

Will Najib survive?

A crucial factor that plays in this unfolding drama between two of Malaysia’s political heaveyweights – and which cannot be over-emphasized – is the fact that power in Malaysia ultimately lies in UMNO itself, sclerotic though the party may have become. It is on this score that Najib remains formidable, even for the likes of Mahathir.

Unlike Anwar, who was only a deputy president when he launched his abortive attempt to challenge Mahathir in 1998 (for which he paid a heavy political and personal price), Najib enjoys the advantage of incumbency. Unlike Abdullah Badawi, who chose to remain quiescent when stridently attacked latterly by Mahathir, Najib has used the powers of incumbency adroitly to head off any potential challenge and tighten his grip on the party. He has done so by out-maneuvering pretenders (he removed his deputy prime minister), sidelining opponents, and co-opting potential dissenters into his Cabinet. These divide-and-rule measures closely approximate what Mahathir himself had used to devastating effect when he was in power. For good measure, Najib has lifted a few additional moves from Mahathir’s own playbook: he has neutralized legal institutions, hunted down whistle blowers, brought security agencies to heel, and shut down newspapers and periodicals that have criticized him. Najib’s consolidation of power has been aided by the fact that there is at present no alternative leader within UMNO around whom a sufficiently extensive patronage network has been created. It bears repeating that the arid reality of Malaysian politics is that power still lies within UMNO, so he who controls the party controls Malaysia. On that score, even if Najib’s credibility is eroding in the eyes of the Malaysian populace, within UMNO his position does not appear to have weakened, nor does he seem to be buckling under pressure.

There are no signs that the enmity between the current and former prime ministers of Malaysia will abate anytime soon. Given the stakes, the depths to which ill-will between both parties now run, and how far the boundaries have already been pushed, the rancor is likely to intensify. Mahathir still commands a following especially online where his studied blog musings on www.chedet.cc, a key vehicle for his unrelenting assaults on Najib’s credibility, remain popular grist for the ever-churning Malaysian rumor mill. In response, Najib has defiantly circled the wagons and tightened his grip on levers of power. While Mahathir is unlikely to relent, the reality is that the avenues available to him to ramp up pressure on Najib are disappearing fast. A recent UMNO Supreme Council meeting that was expected to witness a further culling of Najib’s detractors and Mahathir’s sympathizers turned out to be a non-event and an endorsement of the status quo. In the final analysis then, it is difficult to see Mahathir ultimately prevailing over Najib, let alone bend the sitting prime minister and party president to his will.

Editor’s note: In this post, the third in a series drawing from Fergus Hanson's new book, "Internet Wars: The Struggle for Power in the 21st Century," Hanson analyzes the growing trend of online petitioning influencing policymaking, but argues the caveat that the nature of online campaigning is not always conducive to good policy.

Last federal election, the Obama campaign spent nearly $1 billion to get 66 million voters out to support the president’s victory.

So as the 2016 election approaches, large lists of politically-minded individuals have special value. And it just so happens in the last five years some very large lists have emerged.

These lists are controlled by online citizen-aggregation sites. The largest, Change.org, now reports more than 100 million users, but others are also huge: Avaaz reports 42 million and Care2 32 million.

So far, the operators of these sites have not directed their members in the same way as some of their overseas counterparts.

Two of the largest U.S. organizations—Change and Care2—are for-profit B-corporations and sell access to their membership, often for a hefty fee. They rely almost exclusively on petitions. This is probably driven by commercial motivations to grow membership with a view to selling access to it. But petitions are limited in their ability to effect change, especially as politicians become desensitized to them.

In other parts of the world, the model has evolved to become much more overtly political. A good example is one of the first movers in the space, GetUp!, an Australian-based group. It uses crowd sourcing to fund its secretariat, raising over $5.7 million from tens of thousands of micro donations averaging $11.50 each. It uses these funds to run successful high court challenges and other publicity (and pressure) generating stunts. It stations members at polling booths during elections and uses its members’ shareholder rights to hijack corporate meetings.

This trend is one of the radical new ways the Internet has allowed the masses to aggregate their voice in order to exert influence on decision makers. Suddenly, people are able to do this on a regular basis, outside formal structures like trade unions and political parties.

It also provides great influence to the individuals leading the campaigning sites. They can exercise this by shaping which campaigns have most prominence on a site and allocating in-house resources to help the campaigns they like with editing of material, generating media, and behind the scenes lobbying.

There is a now a long list of examples where these organizations have exerted significant influence on corporations and politicians, but in many ways they are still undergoing significant evolution.

The shift to a broader repertoire than simple petitions and more hands-on political engagement seems likely.

There is also a potential evolution underway in their politics. Most campaigning sites are openly progressive in orientation, but this is changing. In late 2012, Change.org controversially shifted its policy to allow advertising from non-progressively aligned groups. Conservative groups have also started to mobilize online, a prominent example being the Heritage Foundation in the United States, which now has a significant online presence.

Whatever their political leanings, the policy reality of this new force is messy.

The nature of online campaigning is not always conducive to good policy because the groups lack institutional policymaking expertise and often launch campaigns off the backs of crises, allowing little time to think through consequences.

Ironically, these people-power sites also face a question of legitimacy. Three hundred very vocal people with a clever campaign can sometimes drive change that the majority wouldn’t necessarily support. The nature of the Internet can also occasionally make it hard to distinguish between the views of local nationals and foreign citizens voicing their concerns from abroad. Finally, there is the question of the legitimacy of the heads of these organizations who can be unelected business people with out-sized influence.

This is not the only way the Internet is empowering citizens and disrupting global power dynamics. Internet Wars looks at three messy, but intriguing ways citizen power is reshaping the world.

Read the first part in the series, “Big issues facing the Internet: Economic espionage,” and the second, "Waging (cyber)war in peacetime."