Beyond Politics: Addressing Forgotten Issues (Spring 2010)

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Beyond PoliticsAn Undergraduate Review of Politics

Spring 2010

Addressing Forgotten Issues

beyondpolitics.nd.edu

[email protected]



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Acknowledgments

This year’s journal was made possible with the help of

many individuals. The Political Science Department’s Direc-

tor of Undergraduate Studies Professor Joshua Kaplan servesas the faculty advisor for Beyond Politics. Professor Kaplan’s

active guidance and support is the reason this journal exists

today. We would also like to thank Political Science Depart-

ment’s Director of Internships and Associate Director of Un-

dergraduate Studies Professor Carolina Arroyo for her contin-

ued dedication and encouragement.

Beyond Politics would like to express our appreciation

for the institutional endorsement provided by Political Sci-

ence Department Chair Professor Michael Desch. Without his

willingness to work with us, this journal would not be possi-

ble. Alongside Professor Desch we would like to express our

gratitude to Professor Cecelia Lucero for her enthusiasm and

commitment to our project.Our funding was made possible through the generosity

of the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (ISLA), the

Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE), and

the Department of Political Science. Without the encourage-

ment and support for the excellent undergraduate work we

publish, Beyond Politics would not be a reality today. Lastly,we would like to thank all of the undergraduates who bravely

submitted their work for publication in Beyond Politics. A

special thanks also to Juliana Hoffelder, our student cover art-

ist and Executive Editor.



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Beyond Politics 2010 Editorial Board

Editors-in-Chief

Kathleen Donahue - Chinese, Philosophy, Political Science, 2010

Michael Rowley - Arabic, Political Science, 2010

Executive Editor

Juliana Hoffelder- Political Science, 2010

Senior Editors

Kevin Donohue - History, 2010

Evan Guimond - Peace Studies, Political Science, 2010

Christy Haller - English, Political Science, 2010

Tim LeBarge - English, Political Science, 2010

Robin Link - Political Science, Spanish, 2010

Theresa Olivier - English, Political Science, 2010

Associate Editors

Christi Chelsky - Peace Studies, Political Science, 2012

Paul Phelan - Political Science, Russian, 2012Patrick McDonnell - Political Science, 2011



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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction.........................................................................................7

The Catholic Effect: Catholic Representation in Congress

Ryan Brellenthin...................................................................................#

Any Soil Can Host a Dead Body

Eleanor Huntington...............................................................................#

2010 Political Poll

Christi Chelsky and Patrick McDonnell................................................#

Turkey’s Continued Pursuit of Membership in the European Union:

A Liberal Institutionalist Approach

Kelly Kanavy........................................................................................#

Should a Progressive Support School Vouchers?

Chris Rhodenbaugh..............................................................................#

Rebutting the Rebuttal: A Discussion of Chris Rhodenbaugh’s

“Should a Progressive Support Vouchers?”

Christy Haller........................................................................................#



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Cover Art by Juliana Hoffelder, University of Notre Dame



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Introduction

Urgent domestic issues continue to dominate news headlines in

the United States. The suffering economy, the controversy over health

care reform, and issues of immigration and homeland security receive the

most coverage. Although these problems receive appropriate attention in

the news, numerous other domestic and global issues continue to causeconict; these issues lurk in the shadows. Our authors examine several of

these issues in order to emphasize their importance as legitimate concerns

for this Administration.

The 2010 Edition of Beyond Politics is entitled Addressing For-

goten Issues. As a journal of undergraduate research, this edition features

four outstanding student research articles, highlighting issues across the

globe. Our authors have conducted rst-hand interviews and studiedprimary sources in the U.S. and abroad to complete their research. The

articles address important topics such as genocide, the EU, the U.S. edu-

cation system, and Catholic representation in Congress. In the spirit of

academic debate, a senior editor wrote a critical response to one of these

feature articles.

Additionally, for the rst time, Beyond Politics has published sev-

eral outstanding research articles on our website, beyondpolitics.nd.edu.

These pieces cover topics such as torture, Iran’s nuclear program, race

relations, Congressional Committees, and game theory. The Editorial Staff

viewed these articles as too impressive to be ignored. With no ability to

expand on the size of the Journal, we have turned to our website to provide

another outlet for outstanding undergraduate research.

Finally in this edition, readers will nd revealing polling results

that detail the political preferences of Notre Dame undergraduates. This

poll addresses political issues nationally and on campus. In order to ex-amine trends among the Notre Dame population, many of the questions

are similar to those asked in previous editions. We encourage you to view

previous poll results (also found on our website) to understand how Notre

Dame students are evolving in a changing world.

We hope you enjoy the 2010 Edition of Beyond Politics.

Kathleen Donahue and Michael Rowley

Editors-in-Chief

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8 The Catholic Effect

The Catholic Effect: Catholic Representation in Congress

Ryan Brellenthin

Ryan Brellenthin is a senior Political Science major with a minor in The-

ology. Having focused on American politics within his major, Ryan has

been interested in legislator voting behavior since sophomore year and

has been interested in the interaction of religion and politics since taking

several courses on the topic during his junior year. This paper was writ-

ten for a graduate course on representation. The theoretical framework

behind this paper has subsequently become the basis for Ryan’s senior

thesis, which is being written on a similar topic. Next year, Ryan will beteaching secondary mathematics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a member

of Teach For America.

For many scholars of American government, one area of great

concern is representation. A common normative assumption about the

American political system is that it should represent every citizen equal-

ly. Studies have shown, however, that the many crosscutting constituen-

cies within the electorate and the means of representation in this country

leave some people represented less than others, depending on the issue

chosen and the group or groups represented. Some of these studies focus

on how different racial minorities are represented. Others examine the

representation of voters as compared to non-voters. The list continues,

with studies on the representation of the poor and females. Lee and Op-

penheimer examine the implications Senate apportionment has on repre-

sentation.Yet while examination of the representation of different groups

within the electorate is extensive, different religious groups in the

electorate is one area of study that is in need of much further research.

Cameron, Epstein, and O’Halloran essentially ask, “Should blacks be

represented by blacks?” Mansbridge asks the same question, and adds to

it the question, “Should women be represented by women?” This study

asks, “Should Roman Catholics be represented by Roman Catholics?”

This question is of great importance because of the primacy of Roman

Catholics in American political life. As of February 2008, Catholics

comprised about 24% of the American population, the nation’s single

largest denomination. In the 109th Congress, Catholics comprised just



9The Catholic Effect

over 30% of members of the House of Representatives. Understanding

the intersection of Catholicism and representation has great value for

understanding the nature of representation as a whole.

While these numbers alone create abstract interest in Catholic

representation in Congress, there are practical applications as well.

During the 2004 presidential election, Senator John Kerry, the Demo-

cratic nominee for president and a Catholic, came under re from—and

was eventually refused Communion by—several Catholic bishops

throughout the United States for his support of abortion rights. While

Senator Kerry was the most prominent gure in this controversy, sev-

eral other Catholic politicians were refused Communion in 2004, such

as Governor Joe Kernan of Indiana and Governor James McGreevy of

New Jersey. Other Catholic politicians, such as Governor Gray Davisof California, were not refused Communion but still were urged to have

the “integrity” to “abstain from receiving Holy Communion.” Kerry

responded to this controversy by saying, “I oppose abortion, person-

ally….I don’t like abortion. I believe life begins at conception….But

I don’t take my Catholic beliefs, my article of faith and legislate it on

a Protestant, on a Jew, or an atheist, who doesn’t share it.” From this

controversy emerges a picture of two loyalties that sometimes compete

within Catholic politicians—loyalty to one’s constituency and loyalty to

one’s religion.

The aforementioned controversy during the 2004 presidential

election provides a case study for representation by Catholic politicians.

In this case, the politicians reprimanded by the Catholic bishops seem

to place loyalty to their constituencies above loyalty to the teaching of

the Catholic Church. However, it is limited to the issue of abortion and

covers specic instances, thus lacking the generality applicable to allCatholic politicians. To solve this problem, I create a model to attempt

to denitively answer two questions. My primary question of interest

concerns whether Catholic Members of Congress vote differently than

Members of Congress of other religions, holding all else constant. The

secondary question of interest is whether Members of Congress vote

more consistently with the Catholic Church as the compositions of their

districts become more Catholic.

As this study shows, the answers to the two questions above

have important implications for the study of religious representation in

America. To uncover these results, this paper rst examines previous

research in the eld of representation, with a specic emphasis on what




causes legislators to adhere to or deviate from their constituencies given

different situations. Next, I explain the reasoning behind my model,

and provide an explanation of my results. Following the explanation,

I discuss the impact the results have on the body of work in the eld of

representation. Finally, the conclusion ties the results back to the origi-

nal two questions and provides a summary of the study undertaken. I nd

that legislator Catholicism has a signicant effect on legislator behavior

and that the percentage of a legislator’s constituency that is Catholic does

not have a signicant effect on legislator behavior.

Previous Research

Many of the studies of representation revolve around the inu-

ences on a politician’s behavior. In a representative democracy, conven-tional wisdom would seem to point to a legislator acting on behalf of his

or her constituency. Miller and Stokes tested this normative assumption

by examining the connections between the attitude of a constituency and

the roll call behavior of a legislator. They nd that constituents are able

to control their legislator, but only under certain conditions: (1) the leg-

islator’s voting must correspond with his or her own views or perceived

views of the electorate, (2) the legislator’s actions must be motivated by

his or her perception of the district, and (3) the electorate must take the

legislator’s policy views into account at some level when voting. In this

study, Miller and Stokes note that four-fths of the legislators sampled

said that they felt that their success “had been strongly inuenced by the

electorate’s response to their records and personal standing.” While the

study shows that most of the electorate is relatively uninformed, it points

to the potential threat of losing an election as the reason that legislators

respond to their constituencies.More recent research, however, points to the importance of inu-

ences on the voting behavior of legislators apart from constituency. Cox

and McCubbins examine the role of political parties in Congress on vot-

ing behavior. Their study looks at voting behavior in Congress as a col-

lective action problem. By conforming only to district interests, parties

lose power in Congress if all legislators vote based on constituent desires

(theoretically maximizing their chances at reelection). Instead, Cox and

McCubbins demonstrate that party leaders are central agents, whose role

it is to organize members of their party to vote in a certain way, even

if it is not in their own personal best interests. The theory behind such

action is that voting in Congress, under certain conditions, is a situation




in which rational individuals can act in their best interest but act against

the common good of the party. By giving party leaders selective incen-

tives, parties grow stronger, meaning that a legislator’s party becomes

highly inuential in determining what affects voting behavior, coming at

the cost of constituency inuence.

A different theory of congressional voting behavior claims that

legislators have personal interests, characteristics, or preferences that

they value more than the interests of their constituency or their party.

One study of this theory, conducted by Levitt, shows that a senator’s

personal ideology has a much higher effect on his or her voting behavior

than both constituency interest and the party line. Perhaps a more in-

teresting nding in this study is that, while these less signicant factors

take on varying values depending on whether it is a senator’s rst termor later term or how close a senator is to an election year, the senator’s

ideologies are incredibly stable. Levitt also looks at regional differences

to see if disparities in ideology inuence change according to geogra-

phy. While senator ideology varies to a greater extent than in the model

summarized above, it is still the most inuential variable in determining

a senator’s voting behavior. Because Levitt’s models view senator ide-

ology as all factors having an inuence and not already controlled for,

it is probable that a large measure of error is included in the model and

attributable to senator ideology. However, the fact that this variable has

such a large inuence on voting behavior means that, even if the actual

inuence of this variable reduces dramatically, it would still be the most

inuential variable in this model.

One of the most recent studies of congressional voting behavior

belongs to Burden. This study nds that the preferences of a legislator

are of great importance to voting behavior (and all congressional behav-ior, as well), but that it is necessary to “unpack” these preferences from

one large monolithic category: “Preferences depend on a wide[] range

of phenomena, including the backgrounds of legislators themselves.

The information gleaned, and the interests and values formed, from life

experiences shape their behavior on roll call votes.” This study points

to three types of personal preferences that have the power to shape

legislative behavior: values, information, and self-interest. According to

Burden, “These values are often religious in nature and thus differ from

ideologies. They do not necessarily conform to the left-right spectrum

and are not relevant to every issue.” This framework of viewing per-

sonal preferences is important to my study because it helps appropri-




ately shape my model in order to accurately measure the inuence of a

legislator’s religion.

In the area of religion and representation, Green and Guth make

one of the strongest cases for the importance of religion for determining

legislator behavior. In their study, Green and Guth compare the religion

of a congressional district, taken as a characteristic of the entire district,

and compare it to Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) scores for

the district’s representative, thus measuring how liberal a legislator’s

voting behavior is. Green and Guth create a denominational index,

which rates different groups of denominations on a continuum from zero

to seven, with the lowest score being the “unchurched” and the highest

score being the most theologically conservative denominations. Next,

they apply the scores to individual legislators based on the legislator’sreligion and to each congressional district based on the district’s reli-

gious composition. The study shows that there is a negative relationship

between a legislator’s district denominational index and the legislator’s

ADA score. This relationship is the second most inuential determinant

of a legislator’s ADA score, falling behind only party afliation. More-

over, the study shows that the legislator’s own denominational index is

the fourth most inuential determinant of a legislator’s ADA score, with

the region of the congressional district being the third most inuential.

Green and Guth nd that both the legislator’s own denominational index

and the district denominational index are negatively related to ADA

scores.

In this paper, I focus on two specic theories of legislator be-

havior. To answer my rst question, I will test the theory—set forth by

Levitt, Burden, and Green and Guth—that personal preferences of some

sort are responsible for legislator behavior. Although many preferencescan be identied, my paper will give a special emphasis to the religion

of members of legislators, specically to whether or not a legislator is

Catholic. To answer the second question, I will test the theory of Miller

and Stokes, who argue that legislators are responsive to their constitu-

encies. In this case, the group that is of specic interest is Catholic

members of a legislator’s constituency. By grounding my study in these

theories while also including a measure for party afliation, I hope to

reconcile how religion interacts with constituency, party, and personal

preferences in determining legislator behavior.

Data Analysis




In order to examine the role of Catholicism in shaping legislator

behavior, this paper considers how Catholicism affected roll call vot-

ing in the House of Representatives for the 109th Congress. As in other

studies that perform a cross-sectional analysis of roll call voting, this

study will use multivariate Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to

determine the relative impact of Catholicism, at both the legislative and

constituency level, as compared to other factors that may drive legislator

behavior. By using multivariate regression, this study is able to con-

sider how much effect each independent variable has on the dependent

variable while taking into account the effects of all other independent

variables. By including measures of individual legislator Catholicism,

constituency Catholicism, and how “Catholic” a legislator votes, in ad-

dition to other variables, this study is able to determine whether either of these measures of Catholicism affects how a legislator votes. Given past

research in representation, it is expected that a Catholic legislator and a

higher percentage of Catholics in a legislator’s district will both signi-

cantly shape how a legislator votes on issues of concern to the Catholic

Church.

My study is modeled after the framework of Green and Guth’s

research mentioned above, but this study differs in several ways. First, it

is not designed to measure the liberalism or conservatism of Members of

Congress. Instead, it is designed to measure how often a legislator votes

in line with the policy stances of the Catholic Church. Second, while

Green and Guth examine all religious denominations, this study focuses

primarily on Catholicism. Finally, as Green and Guth’s research uses

data from the 96th Congress, this study provides a much more modern

investigation of the intersection of religion and congressional voting

behavior.Independent and Dependent Variables

The independent variables in this study are those that, as in other

studies of similar design, signicantly shape a legislator’s behavior.

Three theories for explaining congressional voting behavior are promi-

nent in past research—constituency inuence, party afliation, and

personal characteristics. In this study, the independent variables are as

follows: legislator party afliation, legislator race, legislator gender, the

region of a legislator’s district, the percent of constituents in the district

that identify themselves as Catholic, and legislator Catholicism. The

party afliation variable measures the inuence of party afliation; the

region and constituency Catholicism variables measure the inuence of




constituency; and the race, gender, and Catholic variables test the inu-

ence of personal characteristics. The dependent variable in this study

is a measure of how often a legislator’s voting behavior is in line with

the position of the Catholic Church on a set of issues of interest to the

Catholic Church. Later, I explain the complexities involved in obtaining

this measure. For the purposes of this section, however, it is appropriate

to note that the measure is an index created in a manner similar to inter-

est group scores such as ADA scores. I create my score based on the

following equation:

Creating a Measure of Catholic Roll Call Behavior

While certain stances are well dened by the Catholic Church in

the abstract, it is much more difcult to determine the Church’s positionon the actual issues that come before Congress for votes. In addition to

time constraints, to search through all the votes of even a single Con-

gress would inject a certain amount of subjectivity into the measure of

which votes are “Catholic” and which ones are not. Moreover, different

Catholic thinkers often view issues differently. For example, thinkers

such as Peter Steinfels and others on the “Catholic Left” may hold one

stance on an issue, whereas Catholic thinkers such as George Weigel,

Father Richard John Neuhaus, and Robert George may hold the opposite

opinion. All would claim to be proponents of the Catholic Church’s posi-

tion. Other Catholic thinkers hold yet another position, such as those

afliated with the Catholic Worker Movement.

The problem of many schools of thought within a religious

denomination is one that is largely unavoidable, yet quite unfortunate

when it comes to political analysis of Church teachings. The Catholic

Church is unique, though, in that it has doctrines and moral teachings towhich all members of the faith are expected to adhere. The United States

Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), while not ofcially afliated

with the Holy See, is an assembly of all Catholic bishops in the United

States and Virgin Islands. Among other tasks, the USCCB tracks legis-

lation before Congress and actively lobbies legislators on certain issues.

For each Congress, the USCCB publishes its “Final Legislative Report,”

which gives a summary of issues of concern to the Catholic Church that

arose before Congress. Included in this report is the stance that the US-

CCB took on each issue, whether it be opposing, supporting, or taking

no opinion. With this resource, it becomes possible to create a more ob-

jective measure of the Catholic Church’s stance on issues arising before




Congress.

Scope of Study

In this study, I examine the voting behavior of the House of

Representatives for the 109th Congress. Although the legislative report

provided by the USCCB can be used as a more objective measure of

Catholic policy positions, some subjectivity is necessary. For the pur-

pose of this study, the only votes examined are either votes on bills that

the USCCB has a rm opinion or individual votes on which the USCCB

takes a position. By using these criteria, there are a total of 19 votes in

the House of Representatives that took place in the 109th Congress on

which the USCCB takes a clear stance.

The 19 votes of the 109th Congress used in this study allow for

the creation of a support score for Catholic legislation. This score is apercentage of the times a member of the House of Representatives voted

with the position of the USCCB. It is created by dividing the number of

times a House member voted with the USCCB position divided by the

number of times that the House member voted on an issue that the US-

CCB took a position on (regardless of whether the legislator voted for or

against the position).

As mentioned earlier in this paper, such a score is not a unique feature

to the study of voting behavior. It is the concept behind the ADA scores

used in Green and Guth’s study, as well as many others. The idea of a

score targeted at support levels for a specic subgroup rather than lib-

eral or conservative issues is a bit more novel, though, but its existence

can be found in other studies. For example, it is the type of score used

by Cameron, Epstein, and O’Halloran in measuring legislator support

for issues important to black constituents. Even though this Catholicscore is the rst of its kind, the theory behind such a score is the theory

that underlies many other pieces of research. This theory is that the

score, representing a percentage of support that a member of the House

of Representatives gives a certain subset of issues, is a legitimate indica-

tor of a House member’s support for the type of issue.

Catholicism in the House of Representatives

Before I perform any detailed analysis, it is necessary to de-

termine how Catholicism is reected in Congress, both at the level of

the legislature and the level of the constituency. Of the 438 members

of the House of Representatives studied in this paper, 131 identied




themselves as Catholic and 307 identied themselves with some other

religious afliation. For the Catholic members of the House, the average

Catholic score determined by using the USCCB Final Legislative Report

is 59.97%; for the 307 non-Catholic members of the House, the Catholic

score is 55.06%. In other words, the average Catholic House member

voted with the USCCB almost ve percentage points more than the aver-

age non-Catholic House member. It appears that there is a discrepancy

between representation of Catholics in districts represented by a Catholic

legislator and Catholics in districts represented by a non-Catholic legis-

lator.

One theory behind why Catholic constituents are better represent-

ed by Catholic legislators than by non-Catholic legislators is the theory

originally investigated by Miller andStokes, namely that Catholic legislators respond to their constituency

preferences. Following this theory, the pressure of constituents on a leg-

islator to vote in line with the USCCB is higher in some districts because

they have a higher percentage of constituents that are Catholic. Based

on the results mentioned above, one would expect that districts with a

greater composition of Catholics are represented by Catholic Members

of Congress. At rst glance, it appears as though this hypothesis may be

true: Catholics represent districts that, on average are 39.00% Catholic;

non-Catholics represent districts that, on average, are 25.78% Catho-

lic. These statistics show that the average district served by a Catholic

House member has over thirteen percentage points more Catholics in it

than the average district served by a non-Catholic House member. Thus,

on the whole, districts represented by Catholic legislators have higher

percentages of Catholics in the district than districts represented by non-

Catholic legislators. Also, districts represented by Catholics have repre-sentatives who vote in line with the USCCB more often than districts not

represented by Catholics.

The data shown above seem to demonstrate that the theory of

constituency interests driving voting behavior in the House of Represen-

tatives is at least plausible. However, the aggregated data at the national

level treat all Catholic legislators and all non-Catholic legislators as

monoliths. In reality, legislators vary in regards to the type of district

each represents, the party each is afliated with, and the personal char-

acteristics each possess. To test whether or not these aggregated results

hold up when looking at the particulars of each legislator and the cor-

responding district, a more detailed analysis of Catholicism in Congress




must be utilized.

Explaining the Data

As detailed above, the model for testing the effects of Catholi-

cism in the House of Representatives is a multivariate OLS regression.

Given the fact that there appears to be a difference in Catholic voting

between districts represented by Catholic Members of Congress and

districts represented by non-Catholic Members of Congress, the ndings

of this model should focus on the signicance and inuence of two vari-

ables. First is the percentage of constituents in a district that are Catho-

lic. If this variable is signicant with a positive coefcient, it means that

the constituency inuence theory is plausible. Second is the legislator

religious afliation variable. If this variable is signicant with a posi-tive coefcient, it means that the personal ideology theory is credible

for Catholic representation. If neither of these variables is signicant, it

means that the other controlled factors are coincidentally responsible for

the variation between how Catholics and non-Catholics are represented

at the aggregate national level.

Table 1. Inuences on Percentage that a House Member Votes with the

USCCB (by Religion)Variables All Legislators Catholic

LegislatorsNon-CatholicLegislators

Party of Legislator

2.935***(.934)

5.318***(1.885)

1.781***(1.072)

Race of Legislator

1.183(1.637)

-.589(5.126)

2.007(1.695)

Gender of Legislator

-2.136*(1.213)

-4.757*(2.413)

-.836(1.402)

Region of District 1.724*(1.023)

1.186(2.328)

1.508(1.137)

% Catholic inDistrict

-.037(.034)

-.010(.062)

-.073*(.042)

CatholicLegislator 5.428***(1.015) -- --Constant 54.373***

(1.188)57.990***

(2.557)55.580***

(1.402)N 435 131 304

***Denotes p < .01; **p <. 05; *p < .10. Standard errors in parentheses.

The rst column of Table 1 shows the results of the model. Party

and religious afliation are signicant at the .01 level, while gender and

district region are signicant at the .1 level. Interestingly, the percent-

age of constituents in a district that are Catholic is not signicant, even

at the .1 level. Party afliation, district region, and legislator religion

all have positive coefcients, meaning that Democrats, Southerners, and

Catholics all vote more in line with the USCCB. Gender has a negative




coefcient, meaning that females vote less in line with the USCCB; this

variable, however, is insignicant at the .05 level and thus cannot be

considered truly signicant. Of all the signicant variables, Catholicism

and afliation with the Democratic Party have the strongest inuence on

the percentage of voting with the USCCB.

Seeing that religion and party afliation are the two most in-

uential variables, it is interesting to examine each of these subgroups

separately. Doing so has two purposes. First, it allows us to see whether

certain variables remain signicant or insignicant within a certain sub-

group. Second, it shows which characteristics are most inuential within

each subgroup. The second and third columns of Table 1 apply the same

model as in the rst column, but do so rst for only Catholic members of

the House of Representatives and then for only non-Catholic membersof the House of Representatives. The ndings contained in these two

columns largely conrm the results of the original model, but also bring

attention to some new points for consideration.

First, since legislator Catholicism is manually controlled for in the

second and third columns, the inuence of party from the rst column

is largely reected in the difference between the constants in the second

and third columns. Next, the table shows that party afliation is signi-

cant at the .01 level. However, the amount of inuence that this variable

has varies depending on whether the legislator is Catholic or not, with

party afliation having a much greater inuence on Catholic Members of

Congress than non-Catholic Members of Congress. District region also

loses its signicance when controlling for legislator religion. Finally, the

percentage of constituents in a district becomes signicant at the .1 level

for districts represented by non-Catholics, but with a negative coefcient.

Since the .1 level of signicance is statistically weak, this result seemsto show that the Catholic makeup of a legislator’s constituency is not

altogether important.

Table 2. Inuences on Percentage that a House Member Votes with the

USCCB (by Party)Variables All Legislators Republican

Legislators

Democratic

Legislators

Party of Legislator 2.935***(.934)

-- --

Race of Legislator + 1.183

(1.637)

-- 1.995

(1.680)Gender of Legislator -2.136*

(1.213)

-3.571**

(1.875)

-1.522

(1.597)




Region of District 1.724*

(1.023)

3.148**

(1.304)

-.680

(1.651)% Catholic in District -.037

(.034)

-.054

(.048)

-.046

(.049)Catholic Legislator 5.428***

(1.015)

4.091***

(1.393)

6.879***

(1.482)Constant 54.373***

(1.188)54.813***

1.570)57.400***

(1.880)N 435 234 201

***Denotes p <. 01; **p < .05; *p < .10. Standard errors in parentheses.+There were no black Republican House members in the 109th Congress.

Table 2 applies the same model as in Table 1, but manually con-

trols for party afliation rather than for legislator religion. Again, the in-

uence of party afliation seen in the rst column reects the difference

between the constants in the second and third columns. Also, religiousafliation is still signicant at the .01 level for both parties, with the

inuence of religion being stronger for Democratic legislators compared

to Republican legislators. Region and gender are statistically signicant

at the .1 level for Republican legislators, as in the model in the rst col-

umn. However, for Republican legislators, the results are signicant at

the .05 level and the inuence of each variable is greater than in the rst

column. For Democratic Members of Congress, no other variables were

signicant. In other words, this model predicts all variation in Catholic

scores for Democratic legislators based on whether or not the legislator is

Catholic.

Table 3. Inuences on Percent that a House Member Votes with the

Catholic Church (with Other Religions)Variables Slope

Coefcients(Standard

Error)

Variables Slope

Coefcients(Standard

Error)Party of Legislator 2.960***

(.986)

Episcopalian Legislator -7.151***

(1.784)Race of Legislator -.174

(1.833)

Presbyterian Legislator -5.407***

(1.759)Gender of

Legislator

-2.040*

(1.237)

Jewish Legislator -5.487***

(1.955)Region of District 1.501

(1.061)

Mormon Legislator -5.221*

(2.883)% Catholic in

District

-.024

(.036)

Protestant/Lutheran

Legislator

-7.094***

(1.733)Baptist Legislator -3.085*

(1.609)

Other (Non-Catholic)

Legislator

-5.287***

(1.574)




Methodist

Legislator

-4.401***

(1.567)

Constant 59.335***

(1.664)N 435

***Denotes p < .01; **p <. 05; *p < .10. Standard errors in parentheses.

Again, for both parties, the percentage of constituents in a district

that are Catholic is not signicant, even at the .1 level.

The ndings from Table 1 and Table 2 seem to be rather compel-

ling, but it may not do justice to the variety of other religions represented

in Congress to treat them all as one bloc in contrast to Catholicism.

Instead, taking into account all other religious afliations as distinct enti-

ties creates a more accurate picture. Doing so shows whether any other

denomination is correlated with Catholicism on issues of concern to the

Catholic Church. In Table 3, the same model as in Table 1 and Table 2

is repeated, but with variables for all other religious afliations exceptCatholicism. The additional variables in Table 3 that replace legislator

Catholicism in Table 1 and Table 2 are Baptist legislator, Methodist leg-

islator, Episcopalian legislator, Presbyterian legislator, Jewish legislator,

Mormon legislator, Protestant or Lutheran legislator, and Other (Non-

Catholic) legislator. By creating these variables, all Members of Con-

gress fall into one of these categories unless they are Catholic. By doing

this, the difference between Catholics and members of other religious

denominations can be compared. This measure is mutually exclusive

and collectively exhaustive. If there is an actual difference in Catholic

representation between Catholic Members of Congress and non-Catholic

members of Congress, these new religious variables should be signicant

and should possess a negative coefcient.

As in Table 1 and Table 2, Table 3 nds party afliation to be

signicant at the .01 level. Again, gender is signicant at the .1 level

with a negative coefcient. Also, the constant of this model is muchhigher than in previous models, because the starting point for this model

assumes that a legislator is Catholic. Therefore, the Catholic effect that

was noted in previous tables is essentially contained within this higher

constant as compared to previous models. Most importantly, though, Ta-

ble 3 shows various levels of signicance for the eight religious control

variables and each of these variables has a negative coefcient. This is

precisely what was to be predicted if Catholic legislators vote distinctly

from non-Catholic legislators on the issues tested in this model.

Discussion

Wilson writes of “Catholicism’s declining signicance as a pre-




dictor of respondent issue positions” in his study of the positions taken

by Catholics in the electorate on issues that the Catholic Church takes a

position on. The study conducted here seems to conrm Wilson’s nd-

ings, as the measure of Catholicism in a congressional district has no sig-

nicant effect on the Catholic score of Members of Congress. The one

difference is for non-Catholic Members of Congress, for whom greater

Catholic presence in the constituency actually has a slight negative effect

on the legislator’s Catholic score. However, this effect was minimal—

a less than .1% change in voting behavior for every 1% increase in the

district composition of Catholics. The result is that the constituency

theory of congressional voting, although rst believed to have been the

driving force behind voting behavior on Catholic issues, is found to be

essentially insignicant in my model.Instead of constituency inuence, this study nds that the other

two theories of congressional voting behavior—party afliation and

personal ideology—are what primarily predict a member of the House

of Representatives’ level of voting on Catholic issues. Drawing upon

past research in the study of representation, my study afrms the theories

of Levitt, Burden, and Green and Guth while discrediting the theory of

Miller and Stokes. Indicators of both party and personal motivations

for legislative behavior are signicant at high levels in every model and

were the two most inuential variables in these models (Table 3 requires

a slight modication of this statement, however, because religion was

modeled as eight separate variables rather than a single variable). It also

was the case that, between the party afliation of a House member and

the religious afliation of that House member, afliation with the Catho-

lic Church is the single strongest indicator of a higher percentage of vot-

ing with the positions taken by the USCCB. This afrms the statementthat, in the area of Catholic representation in Congress, whether or not a

House member is Catholic is the primary characteristic affecting voting

behavior.

In the regressions above that model all non-Catholic Members of

Congress as one group, legislator religion is signicant and highly inu-

ential. However, to group all non-Catholic

Table 4. Predicted Increases in Catholic Score for Catholic House Mem-

bers Compared to Other ReligionsReligious Afliation Difference of Being Catholic (in

Percentage Points)Baptists 3.085Methodists 4.401




Episcopalians 7.151Presbyterians 5.407Jews 5.487Mormons 5.221Protestants or Lutherans 7.094Other (Non-Catholic) Religions 5.287

Members of Congress together does not respect the individuality of ev-ery denomination, so the regression displayed in Table 3 tested whether

any of the major denominations have voting behavior similar to that

of Catholics on Catholic issues. The aggregation of all non-Catholic

members of the House of Representatives may have hid the similarities

between legislators of a single non-Catholic denomination and Catholic

legislators. However, after taking the major non-Catholic denomina-

tions into account, the effect of being a Catholic House member is not

mitigated, but rather is made even more apparent. Every non-Catholic

denomination tested showed signicance (all at the .01 level, with the

exception of Baptist and Mormon legislators, which were at the .1 level)

with a negative coefcient and an inuence greater than that of party af-

liation. Table 4 displays the regression results of Table 3 as the differ-

ence between the percentage that a Catholic House member tends to vote

in line with the USCCB and the percentage that a legislator from each of

the eight religious groups tested will vote in line with the USCCB. Asis demonstrated, a Catholic House member has a Catholic score that is

percentage points higher than non-Catholic House members of all reli-

gious afliations, even after controlling for constituency inuence and

party afliation.

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of this paper, I asked two questions about the

nature of Catholic representation in Congress: Do Catholic legislators

vote differently than legislators of other religions on Catholic issues,

holding all else constant? Do legislators vote more consistently with

the Catholic Church as the compositions of their districts become more

Catholic? Through the ndings shown above, I can approach these ques-

tions with a high degree of condence:

First, the question of religious identication affecting the way

that members of the House of Representatives vote on certain issues is

answered in Table 3. The fact that legislators from each of the eight reli-gious groups tested differ signicantly from Catholic legislators at the .1

level, even while controlling for constituency inuence and party afli-

ation, means that religion appears to be a determinant of how a member

of the House of Representatives votes on issues that the USCCB takes a




stand on. The fact that variance in how often a legislator votes with the

USCCB is best predicted by looking at a legislator’s religion speaks to

the importance of religious identication on a legislator’s voting behav-

ior.

Second, the question of members of the House of Representatives

voting more consistently with the Catholic Church as the percentage of

Catholics in their districts increases is answered in each of the regression

models in this study. Although at rst glance, aggregated data appears

to suggest that House members do vote more consistently as the percent-

age of Catholics in their districts increase, further analysis tells other-

wise. These tables only look at descriptive statistics for the entire 109th

Congress rather than at the characteristics of the individual members of

the House of Representatives themselves. When controlling for partyafliation and personal ideology (namely the religious afliation of the

legislator), constituency inuences become insignicant, with only two

exceptions.

The rst exception is that being a House member from a South-

ern state was signicant to voting with the USCCB, both in the overall

model (from Table 1 and Table 2) and in the model that examines just

Republican legislators. In all other models, though, this variable lost

its signicance at the .1 level. As a result, the overall inuence of dis-

trict region on a legislator’s Catholic score is inconclusive. The second

exception is that, for non-Catholic House members, the percentage of

constituents in the district that are Catholic has a slightly negative effect

on voting behavior. Both the presence of this very minimal negative ef-

fect of Catholic constituency on non-Catholic legislators and the lack of

signicance in all other models of voting behavior indicate that there is

inconclusive evidence to assert that members of the House of Represen-tatives vote more consistently with the Catholic Church as the percentage

of Catholics in their districts increase.

This study shows that there is an actual “Catholic Effect” in Congress.

The presence of such an effect is not tested on the basis of issues that

are liberal or conservative, but rather on the basis of issues that are of

importance to the Catholic Church, as dened by the USCCB. Members

of Congress do not pay attention to their constituencies about the level of

interest in Catholic issues, regardless of whether or not the Members of

Congress are Catholic. Yet there is still a difference in voting behavior

on Catholic issues between Catholics and non-Catholics in Congress.

My model suggests that this difference is attributable to the religious




afliation of the legislator. If a legislator is not Catholic, the legisla-

tor’s voting behavior is best predicted by the legislator’s party afliation.

This appears to imply that non-Catholic legislators do not view Catholic

issues in terms of religion, but rather in terms of their place in the larger

set of issues that is before Congress. If a legislator is Catholic, however,

they seem to pay attention to Catholic issues and take them into account

when voting. This is a large behavioral difference between Catholic

legislators and non-Catholic legislators and, thus, has important implica-

tions for the overall study of religion and representation.

References

Charles Cameron, David Epstein and Sharyn O’Halloran. “Do Majority-

Minority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress?” American PoliticalScience Review 90.4 (1996): 794-812; David T. Canon. Race, Redistricting, and Representa-

tion: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1999; John D. Grifn and Brian Newman. Minority Report: Evaluating Political Equality

Across America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Benjamin Highton and Raymond D. Wolnger. “The Political Implications of Higher Turnout.”

British Journal of Political Science 31.1 (2001): 179-223; Paul S. Martin. “Voting’s Rewards:

Voter Turnout, Attentive Publics, and Congressional Allocation of Federal Money.” American

Journal of Political Science 47.1 (2003): 110-127; Jack Citrin, Eric Schickler and John Sides.

“What if Everyone Voted? Simulating the Impact of Increased Turnout in State Elections.”American Journal of Political Science 47.1 (2003): 75-90; John D. Grifn and Brian Newman.

“Are Voters Better Represented?” Journal of Politics 67.4 (2005): 1206-1227. Sidney Verba;

“Would the Dream of Political Equality Turn Out to Be a Nightmare?” Perspectives on Politics

1.4 (2003): 663-680.

Kim Quaile Hill and Jan Leighley. “The Policy Consequences of Class Bias in State Elector-

ates.” American Journal of Political Science 36.2 (1992): 351-365; Martin Gilens. “Inequality

and Democratic Responsiveness.” Public Opinion Quarterly 69.5 (2005): 778-796; Larry M.

Bartels. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. New York: Russell

Sage Foundation, 2008.

Jane Mansbridge. “Should Blacks Represent Blacks, and Women Represent Women? A Contin-

gent ‘Yes’.” Journal of Politics 61.3 (1999): 628-657.

Frances E. Lee and Bruce I. Oppenheimer. Sizing Up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of

Equal Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes. “Constituency Inuence in Congress.” American Politi-

cal Science Review 57.1 (1963): 45-56.

Miller and Stokes, 54.

Gary W. Cox and Matthew Daniel McCubbins. Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the

House. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Steven D. Levitt. “How Do Senators Vote? Disentangling the Role of Voter Preferences, Party




Afliation, and Senator Ideology.” American Economic Review 86.3 (1996): 425-441.

Barry C. Burden. The Personal Roots of Representation. Princeton: Princeton University Press,

2007.

Burden, 5.

Burden, 39.

John C. Green and James L. Guth. “Religion, Representatives, and Roll Calls.” Legislative

Studies Quarterly 16.4 (1991): 571-584.

See Miller and Stokes, Green and Guth for examples of such research.

J. Matthew Wilson. “Dispelling the Catholic Myth: American Catholic Opinion on Social Wel-

fare Issues.” 2008. Paper prepared for presentation at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Midwest

Political Science Association in Chicago, Illinois.



26 Any Soil Can Host a Dead Body

Any Soil Can Host a Dead Body

Eleanor Huntington

Eleanor Huntington is a History and FTT (Film) double-major. She

became interested in refugee issues while working with Somali, Libe-

rian, and Cambodian refugee children in Denver Public Housing. While

studying abroad in Uganda, Eleanor had the opportunity to travel to

Rwanda. For her senior history thesis, Eleanor wrote on the Rwandan

refugee crisis in East Africa throughout the twentieth century. This paper

is a part of the third chapter of her thesis.

Between April and August 1994, an estimated 800,000 people

died in the Rwandan genocide. The ramications of this genocide con-

tinue to negatively affect Rwanda today. The grotesque murders of nearly

one million citizens caused government structures to shut down, leading

to agricultural, educational, and economic disasters. After the Rwandan

Patriotic Front (RPF) took control of Kigali and effectively ended the

genocide in July 1994, nearly two million Rwandans, mostly Hutu rebels

and civilians, ed the country for Zaire (modern-day Democratic Repub-

lic of the Congo, DRC), Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda. Their departure

coincided with the return of many Tutsi refugees who ed the previous

massacres, complicating land tenure issues in modern-day Rwanda. The

land tensions and unjust laws of land ownership directly affected ethnic

tensions, which eventually imploded into the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The goal of the future prevention of genocide is implicit in the study of

it. Rwandan history may repeat itself without national pressure to ad-dress the structural violence of inequitable land distribution and misap-

plication of justice. Rwanda needs to create a solid system for address-

ing land rights abuses in order to mitigate misappropriation of power and

to prevent future genocide.

Violence and displacement mar Rwanda’s history. In pre-colonial

Rwanda, a Tutsi king ruled over both Tutsi pastoralists and Hutu agricul-

turalists. German and Belgian colonial powers manipulated this political

system, thereby imposing indirect rule. These successive colonizations

institutionalized Rwanda’s ethnic stratication. The colonial powers

granted special privileges to Tutsis and implemented identication cards

based on ethnicity. Frustrated by this discriminatory system, many Hutus



27Any Soil Can Host a Dead Body

and a small number of Tutsi peasants revolted against the Tutsi leader-

ship in 1959. Thousands of Tutsis ed the country for surrounding states,

beginning the endemic problem of Rwandan displacement. In 1987,

Rwandan refugees formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in Uganda

with the intention of reclaiming power in Rwanda. To that end, in Octo-

ber 1990, they launched a surprise attack on Rwanda. This began a civil

war that culminated in the 1994 genocide. In the months following the

genocide, the displaced Tutsis reentered Rwanda while Hutus ed the

country, renewing the cycle of Rwandan displacement.

In this paper, I explore the inability of current legal structures to

address land rights abuses in Rwanda. Part of my research is based on my

personal interviews with Hutu Rwandan refugees residing at Nakivale

Refugee Settlement (NRS). During the summer of 2009, the Govern-ment of Uganda (GoU), the Government of Rwanda (GoR) and the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) attempted

to repatriate all Rwandan refugees as determined by the 2003 Tripar-

tite Agreement on the Voluntary Repatriation of Rwandan Refugees in

Uganda. The initial deadline of July 31, 2009, received a one-month

extension, but voluntary repatriation continues to be minimal. I analyze

the information I received in interviews with the understanding that the

individuals feared involuntary repatriation and may have used the inter-

view as an opportunity to plead their case for continued United Nations

(UN) protection. With this in mind, the refugees at NRS focused on the

issue of landlessness and the sociopolitical abuses they suffered after

their initial returns to Rwanda in the late 1990s. Additionally, they com-

municated discouragement about the current reconciliation process as

exemplied by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

and the gacaca court system.From these interviews, it is apparent that the effects of genocide

do not end when the last person is killed. In addition to providing trauma

care for victims and families, a post-genocidal society must integrate the

pursuits of both justice and reconciliation. It is imperative that Rwanda

foster restorative rather than retributive justice to achieve reconciliation

and genuine acceptance of both Tutsis and Hutus. After histories of geno-

cide, displacement, and inequitable land distribution, Rwanda must face

the challenges presented by contested land rights and collective memory.

Land Rights Abuses

Though a small country, Rwanda had one of the highest popula-




tion densities and highest rates of population growth of all countries in

the world both before and after 1994. Even before the genocide, a few

individuals cited Rwanda’s lack of land and dense population as a reason

why the previous waves of Tutsi refugees could not resettle in Rwanda

and needed to integrate into their host countries. The 1993 Arusha Ac-

cords attempted to make land agreements to allow for Tutsi repatriation;

the Tutsis believed that they deserved to live on their ancestral lands.

The parties involved in creating the Arusha Accords, however, deter-

mined that the government could not grant people ownership of land they

vacated more than ten years prior.

After the genocide, the massive population shifts within and across

Rwanda’s borders prompted new approaches to the issue of land tenure.

Beginning in December 1996, the GoR implemented the National Habi-tat Policy to provide housing in imidugudu for returning Tutsi refugees.

Government ofcials eventually coerced other Rwandans, both Tutsi and

Hutu, to move to these villages far from arable elds and local markets.

Not only did the government enact a policy of enforced displacement of

its citizens, but in the process it also destroyed homes and farms to make

way for the imidugudu. This forced villagization victimized rural Tutsis

as well as displaced Hutus, as all were forced to move yet again.

The imidugudu system had benets for returning Tutsis, who

were able to gain land and resources immediately upon reentering

Rwanda. Government and international humanitarian support focused

on refugee Tutsis at the expense of other groups. After writing separate

books about survivors and perpetrators of the genocide, Jean Hatzfeld

composed a study of the interactions of Tutsis and Hutus in the recon-

ciliation process through his personal interviews. In, The Antelope’s

Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide he quotes a Tutsi survi-vor’s frustration with refugee Tutsis, those whom the genocide did not

directly affect: “Basically, it’s the Tutsis from abroad, those of the former

diaspora[s], who are running the show. These Tutsis suffered in exile and

returned after the killings to reclaim houses, buy the most cows, [and]

start up new businesses.” Though the internal Tutsis underwent the most

horric abuses during the genocide, the external Tutsis received most of

the land benets provided to survivors.

The First Congo War caused further displacement in the region

beginning in November 1996, exacerbating the problems of imidugudu.

The combatants waged this war in part because of inequitable distribu-

tion of natural resources within Zaire, in part as a revolt against President




Mobutu Sese Seko, and in part because of regional instability stemming

from Zairian nationals and Rwandan Hutu refugee attacks on the Ban-

yamulenge, Zairian Tutsis. The Rwandan refugee population in Zaire

included some extremist rebels who planned subversive military attacks

against the RPF-led Rwandan government. In retaliation, Laurent Kabi-

la’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDLC)

allied with the RPF government and evicted all Hutu refugees from east-

ern Congo. Before the Rwandan government could sort out the residual

land problems caused by hundreds of thousands of Tutsis returning after

decades of displacement during the Hutu-led regimes, the forced repatri-

ation of Hutu refugees from Zaire added 1,270,000 to the homeless and

landless population in Rwanda. Upon return to Rwanda, Hutu refugees

discovered that RPF soldiers and other former Tutsi refugees occupiedtheir homes and farms.

Seven of the twenty-four refugees I interviewed cited RPF con-

scations of their land as the preeminent reason for their displacement

in Uganda. They stated that the RPF soldiers who took their land feared

reprisals for land conscations and had threatened the Hutu families with

imprisonment and death should they attempt to reclaim the properties.

Without a general plan for reconciliation even before the forced repa-

triation from Zaire, the hundreds of thousands of returning Tutsis and

repatriated Hutus continued to harbor feelings of bitterness and hatred, a

combination that proved disastrous for Rwanda.

The GoR and the international relief community were unprepared

to handle the sudden inux of thousands of Hutus who chose self-exile in

Uganda rather than remaining in Rwanda. Of the twenty-four people that

I interviewed at Nakivale Refugee Settlement, twenty-one initially left

Rwanda during 1994 for either Zaire or Tanzania. They returned between1994 and 1997 and left Rwanda for Uganda as recently as 2008 because

of unresolved land issues. This state of landlessness increases political

vulnerability and fosters a propensity for violence. The landless person,

especially the rural peasant, must rely on the national government or

foreign aid for food, shelter, and security. Without land, a peasant will

not be able to grow food and provide for his family. Prior to the 1959

Revolution, the Tutsis controlled most of the land and hence exercised

dominant political power. Dissatisfaction with this system propelled Hu-

tus toward violence. This process repeated in the refugee settlements in

Uganda, as Tutsi refugees joined rebel movements out of desire for land

and power. As this shows, the landless person has become an economic




and political liability to the government because of nancial need and

dissatisfaction with the government.

The Hutu refugees who managed to ee Rwanda do not want to

return to a state of landlessness. Under current Ugandan law, refugees

in Uganda live in settlements rather than camps. The difference is that

in settlements the government grants refugees small plots of land, some

tools, and occasionally seeds with which to farm. In East Africa, eco-

nomic opportunity is intimately linked to one’s educational status. Many

of the Hutu refugees with whom I spoke are peasants who attended only

a few years of primary school before eeing. Without an education and

without land, they do not look optimistically toward a future in Rwanda,

a country that the refugees believe does not want to provide for the

Hutus. The Hutu refugees’ aversion to repatriation stems from the lackof security experienced following repatriation from Zaire and Tanza-

nia. None of the refugees want to remain in Uganda, yet they all dread

returning to Rwanda, preferring death in Uganda to the torture, imprison-

ment, and degradation they envision in Rwanda. As one refugee woman I

interviewed stated, “Any soil can host a dead body; I can die in Rwanda

as easily as Uganda.”

Due to the history of displacement throughout the twentieth

century, land possession remains ambiguous. Does the land belong to the

descendents of those who possessed it before colonization? Does it be-

long to the Tutsis to whom Belgians granted the majority of land? Does

it belong to the Hutus who lived on the land before 1994? Are the Hutus

obligated to renounce their claims on land as punishment for enacting

genocide? In the words of one of the women refugees, “I have nowhere

to go if I return to Rwanda… [Rwanda] is completely destroyed; its form

cannot be reshaped.” Displaced Rwandans had and continue to have noplace to go without legal and moral clarications of Rwandan land rights

policy.

The Direction of Justice

The current justice system in Rwanda only pursues crimes of

genocide, excluding other crimes committed by the RPF during and after

the Rwandan civil war. Though victims of génocidaires must receive

justice, the system of crime singularity negates the development of a

peaceful reconciliation. The ofcial RPF narrative deliberately discards

“the elements of authoritarianism and the suppression of dissent which…

mark the behavior of the ruling, Tutsi-dominated elite.” The current




RPF-led government acknowledges neither war crimes committed by

invading RPF troops during the civil war nor the retaliatory attacks

against Hutus after the genocide. This practice encourages temporary

“passive coexistence,” and ignores the fact that “the genocide was politi-

cal and [that] unity and reconciliation can only be brought about by the

reconstruction of a political community, unied but multicultural, fully

participating in the structures of power.” A unied political community

requires individuals’ participation and trust in the government, which

post-genocidal Rwandan government lacks because of the current leader-

ship’s exclusion and demonization of Hutu refugees. A Rwandan refugee

accused of providing machetes to génocidaires stated, “The government

uses genocide to cover up revenge on Hutus.” He continued to describe

how the government under Paul Kagame, the former RPF military leaderand current Rwandan president, convinced European countries to view

Hutus as killers only, and not as human beings. One must take into con-

sideration this refugee’s obvious bitterness toward Kagame and the RPF.

However, his statements demonstrate how Hutus with very little access

to popular media understand stereotypes against them as being propa-

gated by the current Rwandan government. These feelings of extreme

indignation and marginalization do not suggest the growth of a peaceful

society and hamper efforts at reconciliation.

Neither the RPF-led government nor the justice system accounts

for all perpetrators and victims. The UN Security Council approved the

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha in No-

vember 1994 for “the sole purpose of prosecuting persons responsible

for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian

law committed in the territory of Rwanda.” Convened so shortly after

the genocide, the UN mainly intended the ICTR as a means of convictingthe main planners and perpetrators of genocide even though its mandate

includes violations of all international humanitarian law. The RPF com-

mitted war crimes against non-combatant citizens during the war, a crime

under Article Four of the Geneva Conventions, but the ICTR has yet to

prosecute any RPF member for these crimes. Additionally, the ICTR

does not guarantee the safety of those who choose to testify. One of the

refugees whom I interviewed refused to testify against his former army

commander and ed the country for fear of reprisal.

The GoR does not provide any protection to witnesses who

testify against people acquitted of genocide. One woman left for Uganda

in 2001 after the ICTR released the man against whom her husband




testied in Arusha. They feared this fellow Hutu would want to avenge

her husband’s testimony. Another woman spoke of how members of the

ICTR tried to force refugees to testify against perpetrators upon return to

Rwanda. She cited this as a reason why she and others, who were chil-

dren during the genocide, fear forced repatriation to Rwanda. The ICTR

only classies the Hutus as perpetrators of genocide and never as vic-

tims, ignoring both their needs for justice and protection. As a result, the

ICTR does not act a reconciliatory instrument for post-genocide Rwanda.

The ICTR does not prosecute any of the crimes committed by the

RPF in large part because of Western reticence to condemn the RPF. As

the victors of the Rwandan civil war against the genocidal Hutu Power

regime, Tutsi leaders remain exempt from justice because foreign gov-

ernments do not want to appear unsympathetic to Tutsi victims. The RPFhas found it easy to humiliate the previously inactive international com-

munity into submission: “the guilt and debt of the international commu-

nity… meant that Westerners lost the right to ask ‘awkward’ questions of

the RPF and its agenda.” Instead of attempting to create a multi-lateral

and multi-ethnic government in post-genocide Rwanda, U.S. Represen-

tative Christopher H. Smith advocated complete trust in the victorious

Kagame regime. At the hearing before the Subcommittee on Interna-

tional Operations and Human Rights, Smith commented, “The one lesson

that the Clinton Administration has drawn [from the genocide] is to back

the current Tutsi-led Government of Rwanda.” The U.S. government’s

attitude, one shared by other Western governments, created a reluctance

to criticize Rwanda’s illegal occupation of parts of eastern Zaire as well

as RPF crimes against humanity in the former Zaire. Unable to fairly

scrutinize the RPF because of widespread belief that the West failed the

Tutsis, the ICTR and the West chose to ignore RPF’s crimes, thwartingpotential for reconciliation offered by the ICTR.

Apart from the ICTR, an alternate form of legal action and

punishment in Rwanda is the gacaca courts. These courts, a traditional

legal forum in Rwanda, require the perpetrator to publicly state his or

her crimes and ask for forgiveness from the community. The GoR imple-

mented this system to provide an outlet for the numerous backlogged

cases after human rights groups decried the detainment of prisoners with-

out trial. The courts minimized the overcrowding of Rwandan jails, but

similar to the ICTR, critics point to problems of insecurity and witness

intimidation in gacaca. The July 2009 UNHCR Uganda Report com-

mented that “despite sustained activities to promote voluntary repatria-




tion, very few Rwandans are willing to return, claiming difculties in

recovering their land and fear of being prosecuted by the Gacaca [sic]

courts.”

The only ethnically Tutsi Rwandan refugee (son of a Tutsi father

and a Hutu mother) I interviewed at NRS is a single male who left his

wife and children in Rwanda in 2006 because he believed the gacaca

aggressively attacked him. He ed Rwanda in 1994 for Tanzania and re-

turned during the forced repatriation of Rwandan refugees from Tanzania

in 1996. Upon arrival, Rwandan ofcials arrested and imprisoned him

for three months under charges of rebel activity. Though the subsequent

investigation deemed him innocent, the gacaca arrested him in 2002 un-

der new charges of genocide. He claimed that the court ofcials rejected

his neighbors’ testimonies that would have exonerated him in an attemptto persecute his Hutu mother. The traditional justice system of gacaca

brings fractured communities together to address the genocide, but too

often personal politics subvert the genuine intent of reconciliation. The

personal and political conicts subvert the justice process of the RPF-led

GoR, the ICTR and the gacaca, and minimize the opportunity for timely

and peaceful reconciliation.

Conclusion

Displacement is an unfortunate reality throughout the history of

East Africa. This region must collectively address its refugee problem

in order to stabilize current tensions and reduce the likelihood of future

conicts. In the conclusion of his study of Rwandan refugees in Uganda,

E.D. Mushemeza states, “a homeless Banyarwanda is not in the interest

of peace and stability in the region.” He later asserts that the Rwandan

genocide is a potentially repeatable event, as the tensions over land andaccess to resources continue to provoke violent outbursts. As demon-

strated by the Tutsi refugees’ willingness to support Yoweri K. Musev-

eni’s National Resistance Army (NRA) and by present day conict in the

DRC, those homeless victims of violence are more susceptible to joining

violent rebel movements. Just as landlessness fostered frustration that

led to the 1959 Revolution, so too did protracted displacement encourage

refugees to turn toward violence.

The current Rwandan government’s insensitivity to land rights is-

sues is discouraging for prospects of both reconciliation and justice. One

of the women interviewed recounted a repatriation sensitization meeting

during which a Rwandan ofcial informed the refugees that they would




not receive any land compensation: “When you decided to leave, no one

told you to. You must start afresh, expect no properties.” The majority of

Tutsi refugees who returned to Rwanda in 1994, however, received land

even though “no one told them to [leave].” In effect, the current adminis-

tration creates a similar social system to the pre-colonial and colonial pe-

riod in which rule by Tutsi elite stripped the remaining Tutsis and Hutus

of power and land. Without redistribution of land, rural peoples’ feelings

of powerlessness will continue to fester and may again result in violence.

This structural violence is the aftermath of exploitation and marginaliza-

tion and, if left untreated, will once again develop into physical, direct

violence.

Without punishment for Tutsi war criminals and land cons-

cators, the conicting claims for land will remain at the forefront of Rwanda’s problems. The misapplication of justice systems designed to

prosecute crimes of genocide does not adequately address the residual

problem of inequitable land distribution and appropriation. In the post-

genocide era, Tutsi elites once again dominate and control land, the

justice system, and national leadership. While Hutu perpetrators of geno-

cide need to admit impunity and accept consequences, so also do Hutu

citizens and refugees need to see that the new Rwanda will also acknowl-

edge and punish crimes committed by Tutsis.

The Tutsi refugees in Uganda mounted a successful campaign

against the Hutu-led Government of Rwanda, which eventually imploded

into the genocide. Unless Rwanda addresses the complaints and needs

of the displaced Hutu, the RPF-led government remains susceptible to

subversive rebel movements. The history of Rwanda demonstrates the

intersection between land rights, displacement, and genocidal violence.

The future of Rwanda depends on the government’s dedication to foster-ing equality through justice in order to thwart the continuation of this

cycle of violence.

References

For a more detailed discussion of the estimated number of people killed during the genocide,

see Adam Jones’s Gendercide Watch website’s case study of the Rwandan genocide, in the “How

Many Died?” section available online at <http://www.gendercide.org/case_rwanda.html>.

Johan Galtung rst described “structural violence” as a form of violence in which socialstructures harm people by preventing them from achieving their basic needs in his 1969 article

“Violence, Peace, and Peace Research” from the Journal of Peace Research. Since the rise of Ho-

locaust and genocide studies, “Never again” emerged as the rallying cry of people concerned with

the rise of ethnic violence across the globe. For more information, see Ronnie Landau’s article

“Never Again?” published in the March 1994 issue of History Today.

Rwanda was part of German East Africa from 1884 to 1916, when Belgian forces from the




because of unresolved land issues (Refugees B male, E male, G male); and two woman (Refugees

M female, S female) spoke of their torture by RPF soldiers in connection with land disputes.

Refugee B male left Rwanda for Uganda in April 2006, Refugee E male left Rwanda for Uganda

in July 2008, and Refugee V male left Rwanda for Uganda some time during 2004. The remain-

ing interviewees initially left Rwanda in 1994.

Pottier, Johan. Re-Imagining Rwanda: Conict, Survival, and Disinformation in the Late Twen-

tieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002: 17.For more information on the specics rights of refugees in Rwanda, see “The Refugees Act,

2006,” of the Republic of Uganda, specically Section 29, e, iv.

Refugees A female, H male, K female, M female, N female, P female, Q female, R female, S

female, T female, U male, V male, and X female self-identied as peasants in Rwanda prior to

the genocide.

Refugee K female. Interview by author. Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. August 11,

2009. Four other refugees (G male, H male, U male, and X female) echoed similar sentiments,

that they would prefer suicide to a return to Rwanda.

Refugee I female. Interview by author. Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. August 11, 2009.

Bromley, Roger . “After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? Cultural Representations of Rec-onciliation in Rwanda.” French Cultural Studies 20 (2009): 181.

Bromley describes “passive coexistence,” as the state of non-reconciliation and continued bit-

terness without overt antipathy. Bromley, “After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?,” 184.

Emphasis in original.

Refugee C male. Interview by author. Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. August 11, 2009.

In the context of the interview, the interviewer understands the choice of “European” as connot-

ing “Western.”

Ofce of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Security Council resolution

S/RES/955(1994), 1994 (Geneva, Switzerland: G.P.O. 1994).

The most notable proponent of the theory of double genocide is Pierre Péan, a French journal-ist and author of Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs [“Black Furies, White Liars”]. During the

interviews, three male refugees (identied by numbers 3, 4, and 6) used variations of the term,

“vengeful genocide,” “developmental genocide,” and “moral genocide,” to explain why they are

unable to repatriate. Article Four of the Geneva Conventions “affords protections to civilians,

even in occupied territory.” For more information, see The International Committee of the Red

Cross website, available at <http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/genevaconven-

tions> (accessed December 7, 2009).

Refugee J male. Interview by author. Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. August 11, 2009.

The interviewee referred to the ICTR colloquially as “Arusha.”

Refugee A female. Interview by author. Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. August 11, 2009.Refugee Q female. Interview by author. Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. August 12,

2009.

For more information on the types of crimes prosecuted by the ICTR, see Human Rights

Watch’s August 17, 2009 article “Rwanda: Tribunal’s Work Incomplete,” available at <http://

www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/08/17/rwanda-tribunal-s-work-incomplete> (accessed December 9,

2009).

Pottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda, 156.

U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights

of the Committee on International Relations: Rwanda: Genocide and the Continuing Cycle of

Violence, 1998 (Washington, DC: G.P.O., 1998), 2. Representative Smith of New Jersey servedas Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights during the

hearing.

Hintjens, Helen. “Conict and Resources in Post-genocide Rwanda and the Great Lakes Re-

gion.” International Journal of Environmental Studies 63.5 (2006): 600.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the UN Special Representative of the Com-

mission on Human Rights all prepared reports about prison abuses in Rwanda. For more informa-




Belgian Congo occupied the country during World War I. Belgium ofcially gained control of

Ruanda-Urundi in 1923 from a League of Nations mandate.

The interviewees resided at Nakivale Refugee Settlement as of August 13, 2009.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR Country Operations Plan 2004 - Uganda, Sep-

tember 1, 2003, <http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3f7987397.html> (accessed December 8,

2009).

On September 8, 2009, Tarsis Kabwegyere, Ugandan Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness,and Refugees extended the deadline indenitely for the remaining Rwandan refugees in Uganda.

See Gashegu Muramira’s September 9, 2009 article “Rwanda: Uganda Extends Refugees Repa-

triation Deadline,” from The New Times, available at <http://allafrica.com/stories/200909100083.

html> (accessed December 9, 2009).

A Rwandan refugee third-year university student served as translator in all of the interviews (in

Uganda, universities award undergraduate degrees after a three-year program). The interviewer

asked a question in English, the translator communicated the question in Kinyarwanda for the

interviewee, who then relayed the answer in Kinyarwanda. One interviewee responded in English

(Refugee E male). The translator knew personally and selected all of the interviewees. The

interviewer spoke with thirteen men and eleven women. None of the interviewees provided theirnames; throughout the paper, the refugees will be referred to by a randomly assigned number and

by their gender, for example “Refugee B female.”

Gacaca is a Kinyarwanda word for the traditional justice system in Rwanda that roughly

translates to “justice on the grass.” Article 51 of The Organic Law of 2004 provides the gacaca

with the necessary government mandate. For more information, see “Reports on Trials in Gacaca

Courts,” published by National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions and available at <http://www.

inkiko-gacaca.gov.rw/En/EnIntroduction.htm> (accessed December 9, 2009).

See the CIA World Fact Book’s page on Rwanda, located at <https://www.cia.gov/library/publi-

cations/the-world-factbook/geos/rw.html> (accessed December 7, 2009).

Prunier, Gérard. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. Kampala: Fountain Publishers,1994: 353.

The Government of Rwanda and the RPF signed the Arusha Accords on August 3, 1993. The

Accords came about following a series of peace talks to end the Rwandan civil war. Uprooting

the Poor in Rural Rwanda. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2001: 7.

Parties to the Accords included the Government of Rwanda, the RPF, the Government of Tanza-

nia, and the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

Uprooting the Poor in Rural Rwanda. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2001: 1. Imidugudu is a

Kinyarwanda word for government-created villages.

Bruce, John. “Drawing a line under the crisis: Reconciling returnee land access and security in

post-conict Rwanda.” Working Paper, Humanitarian Policy Group (2007): 13.Hatzfeld, Jean. Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak. New York: Other Press, 2000

and Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak. New York: Macmillan, 2003.

Hatzfeld, Jean. The Antelope’s Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide. New York: Far-

rar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007: 90.

The First Congo War included the governments of Uganda, Rwanda, Angola, Burundi, and Zaire

among its belligerents, as well as the rebel groups, National Union for the Total Independence of

Angola (UNITA), Alliance for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDLC), and

the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALiR). The most commonly accepted dates for the First

Congo War are November 1996 to May 1997.

For more information on the First Congo War, see Gérard Prunier’s book Africa’s World War:Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. New York: Oxford

University Press, 2008.

Uprooting the Poor in Rural Rwanda, 9.

Refugees B male, D male, F male, K female, Q female, U male, and X, female.

Six refugees claimed that family members died during land conicts (Refugees B male, D male,

Q female, U male, and V male); three declared that the RPF illegally jailed family member(s)




tion, see the UN Special Representative’s report, available at <http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/

texis/vtx/refworld/rwmain?page=search&docid=3ae6af334&skip=0&query=rwan

da*%20and%20prison*%20and%20special> (accessed December 9, 2009).

Mafumbo, Charlotte Karungi. “Post Genocide Rwanda: Rebuilding a Polarized Society.” Paper

presented at the Rwandan Genocide Memorial Public Lecture, Kampala, Uganda, April 8, 2009.

Akello, Vanessa J. “UNHCR Uganda: July 2009 Update.”

Refugee L male. Interview by author. Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. August 11, 2009.Mushemeza, E.D. The Politics and Empowerment of Banyarwanda Refugees in Uganda 1959-

2001. Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 2007: 149.

Mushemeza, The Politics of Empowerment, 145. Yoweri K. Museveni is the current president of

the Republic of Uganda. He defeated former president Milton Obote’s regime in a coup in 1986.

Many Tutsi refugees in Uganda, Kagame included, served in Museveni’s rebel army during the

Ugandan Bush War, waged from 1981-1986.

Refugee D female. 2009. Interview by author. Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda. August

12.

Weigert, Kathleen Maas. “Structural Violence,” in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Con-

ict, ed. Lester Kurtz. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 2005. She denes structuralviolence as violence that “emerges from the unequal distribution of power and structures.”



38 2010 Political Poll

2010 Political Poll

Christi Chelsky, Associate Editor

Patrick McDonnell, Associate Editor

Similar to last year, the economy is a major focus for many

Americans, and Notre Dame students are no different. While the eco-

nomic situation has improved, more students site the economy as a factor

inuencing post-graduation plans. However, political party distribution

and views on campus issues have remained consistent with last year’s

numbers. Some issues new to the poll concern events surrounding Presi-

dent Obama’s rst year in ofce including the University’s decision to

invite him to Commencement.For the most part, party identication has remained relatively

stable at Notre Dame from 2009 to 2010. The percentage of Republi-

cans and Democrats has decreased from 37% to 32.7% and from 30%

to 27.9% respectively. Independents saw a slight increase from 29% to

30.3%. Third parties underwent a higher increase, 4% in total in 2009 to

8.7% in 2010. What has undergone a signicant change from last year is

President Obama’s job performance levels. Approval dropped from 59%

to 43.4% and disapproval rose from 30% to 48.2%; 8.4% had no opinion.

Interestingly enough, only 8.1% of Republicans approved of the Presi-

dent while only 1.8% of Democrats disapproved.



392010 Political Poll

Unsurprisingly, healtcare saw a notable increase in the amount

of respondents reporting it as an essential priority, from 29% in 2009 to

43.9% in 2010. This increase in priority perhaps contributed to a de-

crease in some other issues, mainly regarding terrorism. In 2009, 32%

respondents reported issues concerning terrorism as an essential priority,

this year only 22.9% responded as such. However, many continue to

hold terrorism as important; over half of this year’s respondents rankedthe issue as at least very important. Priorities regarding other issues

remained relatively constant. Pro-Choice/Life went from a 14% to a

15.5% in priority and Social Security went from 15% to 16.6%. Despite

the University’s efforts to increase environmental awareness and advoca-

cy, concern among Notre Dame students regarding envrionmental issues

has decreased from last year. In 2009, 22% listed the environment as an

essential priority while only 18.7% listed it as such this year. While the

economy saw a decrease in priority from the previous year, it nonethe-

less was the most highly ranked priority for the Obama administration.

Although the priority of the economy did decrease from 80% last year to

74.5% this year, these numbers are large enough to conclude that eco-

nomic issues are still salient on campus.

The current economic downturn has shown steady concern

among students regarding post-graduation plans. In 2009, 42% of stu-

dents felt the present state of the economy had some impact; this in-creased to 46.4% this year. However, the survey was conducted among

freshmen through seniors, and does not capture the higher possible

concern among juniors and seniors. Regarding post-graduation plans,

those planning on continuing their formal education stayed relatively the




same – from 34% in 2009 to 33.7% in 2010 in terms of graduate school,

and 22% to 22.1% for those attending professional school. The amount

of people intending to conduct an intense job search increased from 31%

in 2009 to 34.7% in 2010. This may be reective of the slight improve-

ment of the U.S. economy from 2009. The number of students intending

to partake in service projects after graduation decreased from 2009 to

2010, another possible indication of an improving economy.

Apart from these results, probably the most charged issue the

University faced in the past year was President Obama’s invitation to

be Commencement speaker and to receive an honorary degree. While

81.6% of the respondents at least somewhat agreed with the University’s

choice to invite the President to be the Commencement speaker, only

64.2% agreed with the decision to award him an honrary degree. Inter-estingly, there appears to be a relationship between political ideaology

and whether a respondent agreed with the university’s decision to award

a honorary degree, 90.4% of liberals agreed while 72.8% of conserva-

tives disagreed. Despite differing opinions over the President’s invita-

tion and receiving an honorary degree, only 25.7% of respondents agreed

to the statement that the appearance of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity

has been compromised because of the President’s visit.

Similar to last year, opinion on other campus issues tended to

be more moderate. When asked if colleges should have the right to ban

speakers, whether the Catholic identity of a university is dependent on

the presence of Catholic faculty, if the schools energy initiatives were

effective, or whether Notre Dame should join the American Association

of Universities, most respondents—like last year—fell into the “agree

somewhat” category. However, one campus issue did show a more

denitive response. On January 13, 2010, the Observer printed a comicthat reignited the discussion of GLBT relations here on campus, includ-

ing the addition of “sexual orientation” to the University’s nondiscrimi-

nation clause. In this survey, 66.3% of respondents believed that the

clause should be added.

General Information

Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as a Republican, Democrat,

Independent, Libertarian, Green, or something else?

Republican 32.7%




Democrat 27.9%

Independent 30.3%

Libertarian 5.3%

Green 0.5%

Another Party 3.4%

How would you characterize your political views?

Far Left 2.4%

Liberal 27.2%

Middle-of-the-road 39.3%

Conservative 30.6%

Far Right 0.5%

How strongly do you hold your political views?

Very Strongly 14.9%

Strongly 35.1%

Somewhat Strongly 39.4%

Not Very Strongly 8.7%

Not At All 1.9%

If independent, to which party do you generally consider yourself clos-

est?

Democrat Republican Libertarian Green

51.6% 33.9% 12.9% 1.6%

How frequently during the past year have you been politicaly involved?

(e.g. attending speeches, volunteering or working for campaigns or po-

litical parties, etc.)

Very Frequently Somewhat Frequently Occasionally Never

3.4% 12.0% 38.0% 46.6%

National Politics

Did the 2008 Presidential election increase your interest in politics?




Very Much 28.4%

Somewhat 48.6%

Not So Much 19.2%

Not At All 3.8%

Which of the following best describes your opinion of the things Barack

Obama has done?

Strongly Approve 5.2%

Somewhat Approve 38.2%

Somewhat Disapprove 28.3%

Strongly Disapprove 19.9%

No Opinion 8.4%

In your opinion, how important are each of the following national priori-

ties for the Obama Administration and Congress?

Essential

Very

Important

Somewhat

Important

Not

Important

Economy 74.5% 20.2% 5.3% 0%Afghanistan 22.0% 49.5% 25.8% 2.7%Healthcare 43.9% 33.7% 19.3% 3.2%Foreign Policy 30.5% 42.2% 25.7% 1.6%Environment 18.7% 34.2% 36.9% 10.2%Terrorism 22.9% 47.9% 27.7% 1.6%Pro-Choice/Life 15.5% 18.7% 33.2% 32.6%Social Security 16.6% 42.2% 36.4% 4.8%

What is your opinion of the decision to award President Obama the No-

bel Peace Prize?

Strongly Agree 4.7%

Somewhat Agree 14.7%

Somewhat Disagree 27.7%

Strongly Disagree 46.6%

No Opinion 6.3%

In the fall, President Obama’s administration questioned the legitimacyof the reporting of Fox News. Was this a violation of the free speech pro-

tected in the rst ammendment of the Constitution?

Yes 22.5%




No 55.0%

Unsure 22.5%

Do you think the country overall is heading in the right direction or the

wrong direction?

Right direction 28.3%

Wrong Direction 35.1%

Unsure 36.6%

Do you support the Obama administration’s proposed health care legis-

lation?

Yes 27.7%

No 46.1%

Unsure 26.2%

Campus Politics

Has the recent condition of the economy inuenced or changed your

post-graduation plans and/or career goals?

Yes 11.1%

Somewhat 35.3%

No 53.7%

With regards to your post-graduation plans, what has the current eco-

nomic climate encouraged you to focus on more?

Graduate School 33.7%

Professional School 22.1%

Service Project 9.5%

Intense Job Search 34.7%

Colleges have the right to ban speakers from campus.

Agree Strongly 18.9%

Agree Somewhat 42.1%

Disagree Somewhat 25.8%




Disagree Strongly 13.2%

The chief benet of a college education is that it increases one’s earning

power.





Do you agree with the University’s decision to invite President Obama to

deliver the 2009 Commencement address?





Do you agree with the University’s decision to confer an honorary doc-

torate of laws on President Obama during the 2009 Commencement?





The appearance of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity has been compro-

mised by the University’s decision to invite and honor President Obamaat the 2009 Commencement ceremonies.

Agree Strongly 8.9%




“The Catholic identity of the University depends upon, and is nur-

tured by, the continuing presence of a predominant number of Catholic

intellectuals.”(University Mission Statement)








Generally speaking, how effective do you feel are the University’s cam-

pus-wide attempts to “Go Green?”

Extremely 1.6%

Very 22.6%

Somewhat 67.4%

Not at All 8.4%

Generally speaking, what is your opinion of the University administra-

tion’s pursuit of membeship in the American Association of Universities

(AAU), an elite group of research universities?





Do you believe that “sexual orientation” should be added the Univer-

sity’s non-discrimination clause?

Yes 66.3%

No 20.5%

No Opinion 13.2%

Polling Procedure and Methodology

The undergraduate editors of Beyond Politics collaborated with Ms.

Tatiana Combs of Institutional Research to create this poll. Ms. Combs

compiled a random sampling list of 799 Notre Dame undergraduates that

represent an accurate cross section of the student body. The demograph-

ics of the sampling poll included students of varying ages and majors.

After being contacted via email, respondents were directed to “Survey

Monkey,” which hosted the poll between February 16th-23th. We re-

ceived a response rate of 26.03%. Many questions of this year’s poll

were repeated from last year allowing for an analysis of trends within the




Notre Dame student body. New questions included issues regarding the

President’s rst year in ofce. In future editions of Beyond Politics we

hope to continue to analyze trends and expand to include relevant cam-

pus and national issues.



47Turkey’s Continued Pursuit of Membership in the European Union

Turkey’s Continued Pursuit of Membership in the European Union:

A Liberal Institutionalist Approach

Kelly Kanavy

Kelly Kanavy is a senior majoring in English and Political Science.

She spent her junior year in Oxford studying the postcolonial writing of

female authors and the politics of the Middle East. This period of inten-

sive study sparked her further interest in these topics, culminating her

senior year in two theses and the article which appears in this journal.

Although her work usually involves the study of gender, the following

essay is a policy paper written for the class Diplomacy and Conict inthe Middle East. Kelly plans to attend law school next year and hopes to

have a career in women’s advocacy or international law.

Executive Summary

This paper examines whether Turkey should continue its long

struggle to join the European Union or abandon this monumental effort.

It provides a brief historical account of Turkey’s endeavors to become

a member state in the EU, including the changes it has made and the

union’s history of rejecting the country. It then analyzes the benets,

risks, and costs of continued efforts to join the EU mainly within the lens

of two specic theories of international relations: liberal institutionalism

and Innenpolitik. This study will reveal that in order for Turkey to both

maximize its gains in many areas and remain true to its valued traditions,

it must continue its efforts to join the European Union. Three major ben-ets of pursuing this policy are:

1. Ideological validation

2. Economic advantages

3. An extremely unique and invaluable diplomatic position “between

worlds.”

Choosing to remain on the path of joining the EU will be an arduous

task, however, because Turkey has not yet been deemed ready to become

a member state. In order to remedy this situation, this paper will identify

the problems that remain with Turkey’s application to the EU and sug-

gest ways to resolve these elements of concern. Three problems are:

1. Migration



48 Turkey’s Continued Pursuit of Membership in the European Union

2. The Kurdish minority

3. Fear of radical Islam

After making a careful study of each of these components and advocat-

ing continued attempts to join the EU, this paper suggests that if Turkey’s

Prime Minister Erdogan chose to reject the EU and cut its ties to Europe,

this would likely prove fatal for the tradition of secularism within Turkey

and cause a multitude of other problems. Ultimately, it will become clear

that, while there are certainly risks and costs to address, the most bene-

cial policy for Turkey is to continue attempting to join the EU. The coop-

erative benets provided by membership in the EU are simply too good

to reject. As the old Turkish proverb goes, “Bir elin nesi var, iki elin sesi

var:” People achieve a better outcome when they cooperate.

Turkey has been at a crossroads in its relations with the European

Union since December 17, 2004. It was on this day that the EU made a

commitment to begin the ofcial membership negotiation process with

Turkey the following year. Despite this decision, which many Turks saw

as a victory and greeted with “tremendous fanfare,” there has been little

meaningful activity in the two parties’ negotiations, leaving many Turks

wondering, “Will Europe ever accept us?” It seems only two denitive

courses of action can answer this question. Turkey can continue imple-

menting reforms and attempting to shape itself in order to be accepted by

the EU, or it can abandon its attempts and detach itself from the negotia-

tions.

This is an extremely important issue facing Turkey, and this paper

examines this sensitive problem and recommends that Turkey continue

with its attempts to join the European Union. This course of action would

maximize gains and allow Turkey to garner the respect it deserves on theinternational stage. To pursue this course, however, there must be clear

advantages to doing so. To place the decision into a larger theoretical

framework, I then examine the benets of joining the EU through the

lens of several theories of international relations to illuminate the politi-

cal advantages Turkey would receive from membership in the EU. Also,

I address the risks and costs of such a plan in a theoretical and practical

framework, focusing particularly on the policies Turkey must follow if it

is to have the best chance of attaining EU member status. Then, I dis-

cuss why implementing them is benecial. Finally, I examine the alterna-

tive policy option, that of Turkey terminating its attempts to join the EU.

I argue that pursuing this policy would most likely prove harmful to the




tradition of secularism and modernization in Turkey begun by Ataturk.

Ultimately, while it may be a long process, the fruits of membership will

prove to be well worth the labor it will require to join the EU.

Turkey’s complex experience with collective European economic

endeavors has spanned decades. It is vital to start with an overview of

this history in order to place the current battle for membership in the EU

in the context of a longer, larger struggle. Turkey’s attempts to become

an economic partner with Europe date back to the 1950’s when Turkey

applied for membership in the European Economic Community (EEC)

which was formed in 1957. The EEC approved Turkey’s membership in

1963, but since then the EU and Turkey have had what has been called a

“‘roller coaster relationship’ characterized at times by good political and

economic ties as well as worsening relations following [Turkey’s] mili-tary interventions.” When the EEC became the EU, despite its member-

ship in the older collective, Turkey found itself excluded from the new

version of the European cooperative economic organization. For reasons

discussed later in this paper, Turkish leaders believed membership in the

EU would be extremely benecial to Turkey. Accordingly, in 1987, Tur-

key’s leaders applied for membership but were quickly denied, a denial

which was echoed in December 1997 when EU leaders excluded Turkey

from a list of countries that qualied for candidacy to join the organiza-

tion. This seemed to indicate that Europe did not accept Turkey cultur-

ally, politically, or socially, and that perhaps it was never to be part of the

EU.

Despite these fears, Turkey’s exclusion from EU candidacy

proved to be temporary. At the Helsinki Summit of 1999, the EU in-

formed Turkey that it might have a chance of consideration if it met a

mandatory set of requirements for membership called the “CopenhagenCriteria.” This list includes implementing economic reforms, improv-

ing its human rights record, and normalizing its relations with Greece

over Cyprus. Believing that membership in the EU was a truly valuable

goal, the leaders of Turkey presented the EU with a “National Program,”

a comprehensive 500-page plan detailing how Turkey would change

to meet the requirements of the EU. This was not a bluff, as Turkey’s

National Assembly proposed 37 amendments to the Constitution and

passed 34 of them. It seemed as if a monumental victory had been won

on December 17, 2004 when the EU nally acknowledged Turkey as

a qualifying country for membership and set a date for negotiations in

2005. These negotiations failed, however, and stalemate ensued. As made




evident from the historical context of relations between Turkey and the

EU, Turkey has worked diligently for acceptance to the European Union.

From altering its very Constitution and limiting the traditionally impos-

ing presence of the military in the government to granting ethnic minori-

ties a much wider range of rights, Turkey has fundamentally changed

itself for Europe. Yet, despite all of this work, the question remains:

When Europe continually rejects the country and ignores its changes and

progressions, why should Turkey continue to pursue EU membership?

The pursuit of membership would be economically, ideologically, and

diplomatically rewarding to Turkey.

It is crucial to ground the policy which I recommend Turkey

pursue in a theoretical framework in order to fully explore the economic,

ideological, and diplomatic benets of such a union. Theories of interna-tional relations offer paradigms by which the policy goals of a country

can be evaluated, judged, and ultimately chosen. For example, during

the Cold War, theories of realism were generally thought by theorists to

provide the most accurate and practical explanations of states’ actions.

Realism views nation-states as the main actors in a system of anarchy in

which each nation-state must fend for itself without relying upon other

states for any type of help. To realist theorists and policy makers, “re-

spect for moral principles is wasteful and dangerous… in the rational

pursuit of national power.” This excludes many, if not all forms of coop-

erative action between nation-states because cooperation depends upon

a degree of trust and compliance between partners. In the realist model,

military collusion is excluded. However, it seems economic cooperation,

which provides equal - or close to equal - benets to all partners, should

be prohibited as well. If each state leader is solely focused upon maxi-

mizing his gains relative to other countries, he would not be able to enterinto agreements that called for him to compromise his country’s wealth,

prestige, or ability to build up its military. Because other countries would

be unlikely to enter into a partnership entirely biased towards a differ-

ent country, it seems that partnerships must always involve at least some

form of compromise. Any policy accommodation to other states’ interests

is unacceptable in the realist framework, especially if the compromise

reduces the material capabilities of the compromising country.

Contrary to what realism describes, the large number of members

in the EU indicates that countries are quite willing to compromise some

of their own material capabilities for the benets of cooperation. Al-

though many scholars cling to realism as the theory that best explains the




state of politics, Turkey does not need to conform to the realist version of

the world. Turkey has always prided itself on being an extremely mod-

ern, secular country, even giving women the right to vote before most

Western countries. It is for this reason that Turkey may be condent in

evaluating its actions by quite a different paradigm, that of liberal institu-

tionalism. This theoretical framework, though somewhat more theoreti-

cal than realism, better aligns with the contemporary situation in Europe.

The tenets of liberal institutionalism hold that contemporary states are

less worried about power and security than they have been in the past,

and are much more concerned with providing their populations with

“growth, full employment, and price stability.” The theory suggests that

as globalization progresses and states realize that they may not be able to

provide everything their citizens need, they will attempt to form trans-governmental and transnational organizations to solve their problems.

Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, the founders of the neoliberal school

of thought, assert, “in a world of multiple issues imperfectly linked, in

which coalitions are formed transnationally and transgovernmentally, the

potential role of international institutions in political bargaining is greatly

increased.”

Liberal institutionalism allows for a larger role for “complex

governments… in which the state continues to play a critical role, but in

which many other institutions become increasingly important.” In real-

ism, the goal is for states to acquire as much power as possible, whereas

the objective for states in a liberal institutionalist paradigm is to provide

benets for their citizens, often through cooperation with other states. In

this manner, the “needs of individuals for government derive from the

demand for goods that can only or most effectively be produced jointly

(such as security, maintenance of free markets, [etc.]).” Liberal institu-tionalism does allow for “rational” objectives such as maximizing goals

and achieving success, but through different routes than those offered by

realism. The European Union clearly ts into this description, as its goals

are to produce these benets for all Europeans. Participating countries

may be compromising, but they also gain an immense amount from their

union.

Turkey’s citizens and leaders will benet by continuing to pursue

and ultimately obtaining membership in the EU in three distinct ways:

(1) economic advantages (2) ideological validation and (3) a unique

diplomatic position as an intermediary “between worlds” (the Christian,

democratic West and the Muslim, generally non-democratic Middle

East). Therefore, Turkey’s goal is to join the EU because it will bring




money, prestige, and diplomatic power. The theory of liberal institution-

alism provides a system of cooperation in which these elements can be

accomplished, while realism asserts that a country must strive to achieve

these aims individually. Although it may involve compromising, espe-

cially in the early negotiation stages, continuing to pursue membership

will ultimately prove to be rewarding for Turkey in these three ways.

It would be economically advantageous for Turkey to obtain

membership within the European Union. Currently, Turkey has the “six-

teenth largest economy in the world and a dynamic private sector that

competes successfully with world nancial markets [and] fty percent

of Turkey’s trade is [already] with the Union.” Belonging to the Euro-

pean Union provides two types of economic benets. The rst is through

direct benets, which the EU makes to the member states like the Euro,while the second is through indirect benets, manifested in trade with

EU members. The form of trade that occurs within the EU is almost

completely free of restraints. In fact, “The European Union facilitates

trade among the member states through negative integration efforts

aimed at abolishing restraints on the free movement of persons, goods,

services, and capital.” If Turkey became a member state of the EU, it

would enjoy this trade advantage. Because Turkey already trades a great

deal with the EU, the removal of constraints which the EU places on

non-EU countries will likely cause Turkey’s economy to spike upwards

because Turkish businesses will no longer be burdened by the duties of

trading with the EU while being a non-EU state. Another nancially pos-

itive consequence of joining the EU would be Turkey’s ability to use the

Euro. Moving from the Turkish Lira to the Euro also would be economi-

cally advantageous for Turks. By current estimates, the Turkish Lira is

worth .44 of the Euro. Transferring to the Euro would eliminate the needfor Turks to convert to the Euro in their trade agreements, essentially

removing a tax on all Turkish businesses and transactions with Europe.

This ts with the model of liberal institutionalism because cooperation

through the programs of the EU allows Turkey to advance and bestow

the positive benets on its citizens. This occurrence also echoes theories

of commercial liberalism, which explain that economic “interdependence

is… a goal of foreign policy that should result in a framework in which

natural harmony of interests among nations can unfold.” It is coopera-

tion, not competition which will bring Turkey to a better position. Al-

though Turkey is currently considered the cheap holiday spot of Europe,

switching currencies and receiving the economic benets that the EU




offers its members would further improve the living situation of Turks.

The depiction of Turkey as nothing but a cheap holiday locale

reects an unfortunately common European conception of the country.

Joining the EU would not only be economically sound but ideologically

validating for a country that has too long been referred to as the stereo-

typical “sick man” of Europe. The years of failure in attempting to join

the EU have cast doubt within Turkey’s own political consciousness as

to when they will be modern and European enough to be accepted by

the European Union. Political commentators have described this attitude

regarding the situation as “yes-but…” Additionally, the immigration

situation in Europe has created an atmosphere of prejudice against the

Turks. There is an extremely large level of illegal Turkish immigration,

particularly in Germany, leading to anti-Turkish sentiments which areclearly made manifest in publicized negative European feelings about

Turkey joining the EU.

If Turkey joins the EU, however, it will likely diminish the effect

of illegal immigration. This is because citizens of the EU are allowed to

move within the connes of Europe and be hired as if they were nation-

als of the country in which they would then reside. By reducing the ten-

sion between illegal immigrants working for a low wage and the natives

who believe immigrants take away their jobs, it is possible that a more

positive view of Turks could permeate Europe. Additionally, French

politicians have repeatedly stated, “Turkey is not a European country…

It has a different culture, a different approach, and a different way of

life. It is not a European country, and membership for Turkey in the EU

would mean the end of Europe.” This extreme, negative stance reects

the immense prejudice held against the Turks in the mind of many Eu-

ropeans. If Turks were nally permitted to join the EU, this acceptancecould validate them as “European” and justify all of the changes they

have endured in their country as having been worth the effort.

When domestic pressure exerted upon the government to con-

tinue to solicit membership in the EU helps to shape foreign policy, that

phenomenon would best be explained through the framework of Innen-

politik. Gideon Rose introduces Innenpolitik as a body of theoretical

work which argues that foreign policy is best explained by a country’s in-

ternal factors. To understand why a country behaves the way it does, he

asserts, one must “peer inside the black box and examine the preferences

and congurations of key domestic actors.” Turks are proud of their his-

tory and their tradition of modernization and secularization as instilled




in the culture by Ataturk, the father of the Turkish people. Although the

country has passed his time, his legacy as a key domestic actor lives on

and is constantly invoked. The national ethos therefore resounds with the

theme of modernization, a concept that the European Union supposedly

encourages. By joining the economic collective of the EU, Turks not

only gain material advantages in standard of living and currency but also

fulll the dream of the nation’s forefather.

A nal positive effect of Turkey joining the EU is Turkey’s

unique position in the world. In his article “Turkey’s Dreams of Acces-

sion,” David Phillips states, “Turkey’s accession to the EU is an un-

precedented chance for the country to fulll its potential as a successful

modern democracy in the Muslim world and for the West to strengthen

a precious ally in the ght against terrorism, deepen its commitment todiversity, and foster liberalization in the Islamic world.” Turkey, as a

Muslim democracy, is a rarity in itself. In fact, “Turkey is the only coun-

try in the Muslim world that has a completely secular legal system… and

Turks are deeply proud of the Ataturk-era reforms.” The Turkish govern-

ment’s military accords with Israel (signed in 1996) and its granting of

permission for the US to launch air strikes from Turkish territory in the

First Gulf War demonstrate the nation’s willingness to communicate with

and support the Western world.

If Turkey were to join the EU, it would cement its unique place in

global diplomatic relations. No other country can claim to have the same

hybrid nature of Turkey, and if Turkey were on the inside of the eco-

nomic sphere of Europe it would only further enforce the idea of Turkey

as a Western-inuenced country which remained true to its Islamic roots

as a country with a majority Muslim population. The success of Prime

Minister Ergodam’s political party, the Islamic-oriented AKP or Justiceand Development Party, in pursuing secular goals while remaining com-

mitted to Muslim values, demonstrates the diverse mix of characteristics

that Turkey has. Membership could lead to further economic and military

cooperation which would further Turkey’s success in partnerships, as

detailed by liberal institutionalism.

After studying the benets of joining the EU through a theoretical

lens, it is vital to understand the possible hardships caused by Turkey’s

attempts to join the EU . Three specic elements, highly related to the

benets, make up these difculties: 1) Migration 2) The Kurdish minor-

ity and 3) Radical Islam. These three issues are sources of concern in

both Turkey and European countries, so I will analyze the attitudes and




motivations of each party. Accompanying these risks or costs will be

suggestions of how to overcome them or diminish their impact. If Tur-

key can resolve the issues Europe has with it and secure itself as a stable

place, all of the cooperative partners will benet as described in theories

of liberal institutionalism.

There are deep-set fears in the EU about whether allowing Tur-

key to join the Union will open the oodgates for Turkish immigration.

I have already addressed the positive elements of immigration for coun-

tries in the EU for Turkey, but there are negative ones as well. Turkey

would be both the largest and poorest member of the European Union if

it were to join the EU. Europeans fear that poor Turks with higher birth

rates would ood European job markets, ruining the culture of Europe

and making native unemployment levels rise. Some Turks fear thisexodus as well, and the Turkish government is wary of Europe attract-

ing talented Turkish workers, a concern building from guest worker

programs already in place in Europe. As Michael Teitelbaum and Philip

Martin explain in their article “Is Turkey Ready for Europe?” however,

“the truth is that no one can offer credible predictions in the case of

Turkey. Most analysts guess that if Turkey entered the EU, a large initial

wave of Turks… would travel abroad [but] after this initial wave, migra-

tion would likely depend on the… markets in Turkey.”

This means the government can act to diminish the possible negative

effects of joining the EU. Turkey should actively look for foreign invest-

ments and capital to stimulate the job market and create opportunities,

thus reducing fears of a ood of Turkish laborers into Europe. Addi-

tionally, the government could work with grant organizations to offer

scholarships to students (possibly even overseas) in return for an agreed

upon period of time working in Turkey after graduation. Exploring theseoptions will help to allay European fears and cushion the possible impact

of joining the EU.

Beyond the fear of Turkish laborers ooding the market, how-

ever, there exists a deeper, more fundamental objection to Turkey joining

the EU, which is the issue of the Kurdish minority. This is an extremely

difcult situation which Europeans may not be able to fully understand

without knowing the history of tenuous relations between Turks and

Kurds. Turkey’s ofcial policy on Turkish Kurds had long been to deny

their existence entirely. If Kurds renounced their Kurdish heritage and

declared their loyalty to the Turkish state, they could live normally and

even hold ofce in the Turkish government. If they refused, however,




and asserted their Kurdish heritage, they would be the targets of govern-

ment persecution. In the past quest of a coherent nation-state, the Turkish

government attempted to eliminate competing identities in order to build

a strong and unied Turkish nation.

In accordance with the “Copenhagen Criteria,” however, the Turk-

ish government has taken important steps to liberalize its policies and

become more tolerant of the Kurdish minority. In 2002, Parliament

declared bans on Kurdish education and broadcasting to be lifted, and

in 2003 it passed laws allowing greater freedom of speech and Kurdish

language rights. In a great indication of tolerance for the Kurdish minor-

ity, during the elections in 2007, twenty pro-Kurdish MPs were elected

and allowed to take their seats. These positive changes reect Turkey’s

willingness to tolerate pluralistic identities and admit historical mistakes.Other governments in the EU have made similar errors, but they have

become fully cooperative and productive members of the Union. This

historical issue should not prevent the EU from accepting Turkey as a

member state. Turkey has been actively altering itself to Europe’s stan-

dards and is truly willing to change.

However, there is a more salient problem for Europe to face in

accepting Turkey to the EU., There most likely exists the overwhelming

European fear that Turkey will install an overtly radical Islamic regime

which will crush inhabitants’ civil liberties, foster terrorism, and export

religious revolution through the porous EU borders. Unarticulated fears

of Islam are on the forefront in the Christian continent as immigration

from Muslim countries rises. On the other side, many Turks believe that

“no matter how much the country reforms, the EU will ultimately reject

a Muslim candidate.” Although Kemalists are extremely supportive

of modernization and secularization, radical Islamic stirrings do existbeneath the surface. Islamists maintain, “Turkey should identify itself as

part of the Islamic community rather than as a member of the Western

political, military, and economic organizations.” The European fear of

Muslims exposes a number of contradictions in Europe’s policy towards

Turkey. The leaders of the EU want Turkey to allow all minorities and

religious groups to have free reign and free organization. They also ad-

vocate an end to military tension with the Kurds, as many of them belong

to the PKK, a terrorist organization that ghts to liberate Kurdistan from

Turkey. Europeans desire a free and egalitarian democratic system in

Turkey, but fear radical Muslim representation. Right now, the threat

of radical Muslims is slim because most Turks are extremely proud of




Ataturk, their founding father, and the secularization he instilled in Tur-

key. Working towards the common goal of European integration should

continue to enforce secularization and “Europeanness.”

The fear of radical Islam, however, is relevant in examining the

pursuit of other policy options. If the Turkish government stopped at-

tempting to join the EU, it is possible that after all the ways in which the

Turkish people have attempted to mold themselves to Europeans stan-

dards, “Turkey’s rejection by the EU could cause a domestic backlash

against the West and embolden ultranationalists and religious extremists

been on derailing Turkey’s liberalization, democratization, and demili-

tarization.” In this manner, although Islamist rumblings do exist beneath

the surface, they are generally kept in check by the majority who desire

to “bind Turkey more closely to the West [and] fulll Ataturk’s vision of Turkey as a modern European country.”

This paper has demonstrated that Turkey would gain major mate-

rial and ideological benets by continuing to pursue membership with

the EU. Abandoning attempts to integrate with Europe, Turkey might

forever lose its foothold in the European community, which would be a

true tragedy for Turkey after its struggle for modernization. The theo-

retical framework of liberal institutionalism demonstrates that Turkey

should cooperate with Europe rather than rebel against it in order to gain

the maximum benets for its people, such as a likely rise in standard of

living and a better reputation throughout Europe. The accomplishment of

joining the EU would be a concrete marker of the battle waged by Turks

to be accepted by Europe. Seeing the benets of integrating with Europe,

the ability to overcome the costs of such integration, and the negative ef-

fects of pursuing an alternative course of action, Turkey should continue

to strive to be a member state of the EU.

ReferencesHilal Elver, “Reluctant Partners: Turkey and the European Union,” Middle East Report 235,

Middle East Research and Information Project (Summer, 2005) 20 Nov. 2009 pp. 25 <http://

www.jstor.org/stable/30042445>.

“The ever lengthening road; Turkey and the European Union.” The Economist (US) 381.8507

(Dec 9, 2006): 54US. Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale. University of Notre Dame - Libraries.

21 Nov. 2009 <http://nd.galegroup.com.prox y.library.nd.edu/itx/start.do?prodId=EAIM>.

Birol A. Yesilada, “Turkey’s Candidacy for EU Membership,” Middle East Journal 56:1 (Winter2002) pp. 94 18 Nov. 2009: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4329722>.

Ibid 95.

Hilal Elver, “Reluctant Partners: Turkey and the European Union,” Middle East Report 235,

Middle East Research and Information Project (Summer, 2005) 20 Nov. 2009 pp. 24: <http://


Birol A. Yesilada, “Turkey’s Candidacy for EU Membership,” Middle East Journal 56:1 (Winter




2002) pp. 95-96 18 Nov. 2009: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4329722>.

Ibid 98.

Ibid 99.

Michael S. Teitelbaum and Philip L. Martin, “Is Turkey Ready for Europe?” Foreign Affairs,

82:3 (May-Jun 2003) pp. 98, 20 Nov. 2009: <http:www.jstor.org/stable/20033581>.

Charles W. Kegley, “The Neoliberal Challenge to Realist Theories of World Politics: An In-

troduction” “The Neoliberal Challenge to Realist Theories of World Politics: An Introduction,”Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neoliberal Challenge, (New

York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1995) pp. 4.

Ibid pp. 4-5.


Middle East Research and Information Project (Summer, 2005) 20 Nov. 2009 pp. 27: <http://


Joseph Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Lib-

eral Institutionalism,” Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neolib-

eral Challenge, (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1995) pp. 154.

Joseph Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Lib-eral Institutionalism,” Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neolib-

eral Challenge, (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1995) pp. 154.

Barry Hughes, “Evolving Patterns of European Integration and Governance: Implications for

Theories of World Politics,” Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the

Neoliberal Challenge, (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1995) pp. 233

Ibid pp. 225.

Yesilada, Birol A. “Turkey’s Candidacy for EU Membership.” Middle East Journal 56:1 (Winter

2002) 18 Nov. 2009: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4329722>.

Christopher J. Anderson and M. Shawn Reichart, “Economic Benets and Support for Mem-

bership in the E.U.: A Cross-National Analysis” pp. 234 20 Nov. 2009: <http://www.jstor.org/4007534>.

Ibid pp. 234.

http://coinmill.com/EUR_TRY.html

Mark W. Zacher and Richard A. Matthew. 1995, “Liberal International Theory: Common

Threads, Divergent Strands,” Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the

Neoliberal Challenge, (New York: St. Martin’s Press) pp. 124.


82:3 (May-Jun 2003) pp. 110, 20 Nov. 2009: <http:www.jstor.org/stable/20033581> 98.

Ibid 104.

Michael S. Teitelbaum and Philip L. Martin, “Is Turkey Ready for Europe?” Foreign Affairs,82:3 (May-Jun 2003) pp. 110, 20 Nov. 2009: <http:www.jstor.org/stable/20033581> 98.


82:3 (May-Jun 2003) pp. pp. 110, 20 Nov. 2009: <http:www.jstor.org/stable/20033581> .

Gideon Rose, “Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy,” World Politics 51:1

pp.148.

Ibid.

David L. Phillips, “Turkey’s Dreams of Accession,” Foreign Affairs 83:5 (Sept-Oct 2004) pp.

97: <http:www.jstor.org/stable/20034069>.


Middle East Research and Information Project (Summer, 2005) pp. 27: <http://www.jstor.org/stable/30042445>.

Sabri Sayari, “Turkey and the Middle East in the 1990’s,” Journal of Palestine Studies XXVI,

26:3 (1997) pp. 49: <http:www.jstor.org/stable/2538156>.


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Nader Entessar, Kurdish Ethnonationalism, (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992) pp. 81.




Report: A Quest for Equality: Minorities in Turkey, Minority Rights Group International,

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David L. Phillips, “Turkey’s Dreams of Accession,” Foreign Affairs 83:5 (Sept-Oct 2004) pp.

95: <http:www.jstor.org/stable/20034069>.

Sabri Sayari, “Turkey and the Middle East in the 1990’s,” Journal of Palestine Studies XXVI,

26:3 (1997) pp. 51: <http:www.jstor.org/stable/2538156>.

David L. Phillips, “Turkey’s Dreams of Accession,” Foreign Affairs 83:5 (Sept-Oct 2004) pp.96: <http:www.jstor.org/stable/20034069>.

Ibid.



60 Should A Progressive Support School Vouchers?

Should a Progressive Support School Vouchers?

Chris Rhodenbaugh

Chris Rhodenbaugh is a junior Political Science major with a minor

in the Hesburgh Program in Public Service. His experience in poli-

tics includes being an intern and eld organizer for President Obama’s

campaign and the Northern Indiana College Democrats, eld director

for Anne Peterson Hutto for South Carolina State House District 115,

and campus intern with Organizing for America. Chris participated in

the Washington D.C. semester program his sophomore year, interning at

the Children’s Defense Fund and received the Lyman Internship Award toremain in D.C. for the summer where he worked in Senator Evan Bayh’s

ofce. This paper was written for a research seminar focusing on public

policy.

Introduction

Quality of education is one of the most important issues in the

United States today. The U.S. has not established a public education sys-

tem that is competitive with our international counterparts, and therefore

legislators from both sides of the aisle agree on the need for reform. The

Congressional Progressive Caucus states its opinion on education reform

as:

Every child in America, regardless of race, gender, income,ability, language, and sexual orientation is entitled to the same, high quality,educational opportunities. Education is the one way that every child cancompete on a level playing eld to achieve his or her full potential, and public

education is the backbone of American society.The public school system in the United States is failing to serve the

next generation of Americans effectively and equally. Shortcomings in

current education policy will prove devastating to the well being of the

United States in the long-term if they are not addressed. Today, the Unit-

ed States nds itself trailing other industrialized countries signicantly

in important indicators of overall academic achievement. The cost of the

international achievement gap is valued at roughly $1.3 trillion, nine per-

cent of the GDP of the United States. Much of the achievement gap canbe attributed to not providing adequate opportunity for low income and

minority students. Only nine percent of college students in the top 120

universities in the U.S. come from the bottom half of the income distri-

bution. One in two African Americans and Latinos will drop out of high



61Should A Progressive Support School Vouchers?

school. Further, “most high schools graduate little more than two-thirds

of their students on time. And even the students who do receive a high

school diploma lack adequate skills: More than 33% of rst-year college

students require remediation in either math or English.”

This is also an issue of economic inequality. Roughly 90% of

American children attend public school and for many they are satised

with their experience because their schools are well funded by their up-

per income property taxes. However, the families and children in poorer

districts, in particular minority students in urban areas, have not seen

many of the benets of public schooling. The value of having education

as a public good is that it is supposed to be the foundation for equal op-

portunity. Instead, the current public education system can function as

a means of discrimination, a barrier to racial equality and socioeconomicmobility. According to Richard Kahlenberg of the American Prospect,

“Four decades of research has found that the single best thing one can

do for a low-income student is give her a chance to attend a middle-class

school.” A good public education should be the rst step towards the

American dream and for many Americans it is.

However, for minorities and the poor, the numbers overwhelm-

ingly display a system that is thoroughly failing. The 2007 National As-

sessment of Educational Progress given to fourth-graders in math found

that low-income students attending more afuent schools scored nearly

two years ahead of low-income students in high poverty schools.” High

poverty schools are dened as having more than 75% of students eligible

for free or reduced-price lunch. In contrast, economically successful

families have had a national school choice plan for decades because they

have the ability to choose where they live according to the quality of the

schools, or to pay for private school tuition. This paper evaluates wheth-er vouchers are an essential component of education reform if the school

system in the United States is going to reach the expectations set forth

above by the progressive caucus.

The terms “vouchers” and “progressive” are broad concepts

that need clarication. School vouchers in the context of this paper are

government cash grants or tax credits for parents to pay for their child’s

K-12 education in a private school. School choice is the umbrella term

that denes the movement for parents to have more choices for their chil-

dren. School choice encompasses public school choice, charter schools,

and vouchers for private schools. I dene a progressive as a liberal

reformist in the American political system that most often identies with,




or is a member of, the Democratic Party. In the United States, progres-

sives focus on equality and justice, often seeking change through an in-

creased government role. I argue that in regards to education, a progres-

sive by denition should be willing to accept any structural reform if it is

clear that it will meet education policy goals. To be accepted by pro-

gressives, education reform needs to achieve three goals: substantially

reduce the racial and socioeconomic achievement gap, increase overall

performance and amount of candidates for college, and make the United

States competitive internationally in academic achievement. Teacher

union Democrats and free market voucher Republicans dene the struc-

ture of the education reform debate that has come to a halt on partisan

lines. In order to overcome this political stalemate and achieve success-

ful education reform, it is crucial that progressives consider vouchers asa potential means of reform.

The political environment for improving the education system

is evolving as recent attempts at reform, in particular the bi-partisan No

Child Left Behind Act of 2001, have failed to meet their goals. Pessi-

mism is growing in Congress and within the education community about

the potential for the current structure to effectively educate all children,

even with proper funding. This lack of faith explains in part the enor-

mous growth of charter schools in recent years, as well as the momen-

tum towards changing the payment mechanism for teachers to reward for

student performance. Both chambers of Congress are actively preparing

for dealing with education reform in 2010. In today’s hyper-partisan

political environment there are trends developing that already indicate

partisan divide on the issue. Progressives tend to think that increased

funding will solve many of the problems in public schools, and that

any reform effort must work for every child. Conservatives often arguethat school vouchers and tax subsidies for private education will rescue

the school system with the free market. In order to be successful after

implementation, there must be a middle ground in the debate and policy

formulation process that consistently prioritizes children above political

ideologies.

No Child Left Behind

The most recent federal overhaul of the education system is the

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The act amended the Elementary

and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to become the new foundation

for public education in the United States. The ofcial purpose of the




bill is “to close the achievement gap with accountability, exibility, and

choice, so that no child is left behind.” At the foundation of the Act is

mandatory testing in reading and math in grades three through eight.

Other testing is mandated for high school students to continually monitor

progress. The test results are the sole indicator of “adequate yearly prog-

ress” (AYP). AYP is the standard requirement that schools work to meet

every year, and failure to do so results in repercussions. This includes

a sliding scale of programs implemented each consecutive year that a

school does not meet their AYP. After two years, parents must be noti-

ed of the status of their child’s school, and they have the right to choose

another public school. After three years, every student is eligible to be

covered by the government for tutoring programs in addition to school.

After four and ve years of not meeting AYP, schools are required to berestructured or even closed.

No Child Left Behind is very ambitious in its scope of addressing the

problem and was made into law with the help of progressive leader and

late Senator Ted Kennedy. However, after nearly nine years of imple-

mentation, new data reveals that test scores have not improved consis-

tently and that the racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps have not

been reduced. , The failure of the legislation in its rst decade is the

topic of much debate. President Obama said in his campaign’s Blue Print

for Change:

No Child Left Behind Left the Money Behind: The goal of the

law was the right one, but unfullled funding promises, inadequate im-

plementation by the U.S. Department of Education and shortcomings in

the design of the law itself have limited its effectiveness and undercut its

support. As a result, the law has failed to provide high-quality teachers in

every classroom and failed to adequately support and pay those teachers.Progressives frequently cite that “teaching to the tests” is not

an effective method and funding for underachieving schools has been

inadequate in the implementation of NCLB. , The Republican controlled

House and Senate structured the bill so that it requires funding for ad-

ditional help programs for students in underachieving schools to come

from redirecting funds from their own Title-1 grants. This reduced the

cost of the bill, but it also failed to provide needed funding for struggling

schools. Regardless of funding difculties, NCLB endorsed the structure

of the public school system that it was designed to reform by maintaining

a lot of power centralized in districts. The failure of NCLB to meet the

goals set by legislators, most importantly reducing the racial and socio-




economic achievement gap, makes it clear that the next round of reform

to the education system must not assume that the structure of the current

public school system needs to be maintained.

Despite the demonstrated need for reform, it already appears as

though progressives are muting school voucher advocates under the as-

sumption that vouchers are the free market solution to solving education

problems. Representative George Miller, the Chairman of the Education

& Labor Committee in the House, said in a press release, “On Education,

More of the Same From Republicans…GOP Leaders Push for Vouch-

ers Again Instead of Giving Public Schools the Resources They Need to

Succeed.” Miller’s statement is indicative of the sentiment on the left

towards vouchers. The Senate HELP Committee Majority website, in

addition to many of the committee’s prominent members, fails to men-tion school vouchers. Only three Senators out of 59 that caucus with

the Democrats are on record as supporting vouchers for private schools,

Senator Lieberman of Connecticut, Senator Byrd of West Virginia, and

Senator Feinstein of California. Not a single progressive member of the

House or Senate is on the record for supporting school vouchers. Be-

cause of the clear apprehension in the Democratic party about school

vouchers, it is important to examine the existing vouchers.

Existing Voucher Programs

Voucher programs can be privately or publicly funded. Inde-

pendent privately funded voucher programs, or programs without any

government involvement, exist across the country. In 2001 there were 79

private voucher programs serving roughly 50,000 children. Today there

are 7 states that have implemented a tax credit system that relies on tax-

deductible donations from either corporations or individuals to provide

tuition scholarships for low-income children. Apart from these indepen-dent voucher programs, this paper focuses on the merits and prospects

of federal and state funded vouchers for families to send their children

to private schools. There are currently ve publicly funded programs

nationally, excluding programs solely for students from foster homes or

students with intellectual disabilities, which offer publicly funded vouch-

ers to students. Florida’s Opportunity Scholarship Program is cited with-

in the paper, but is not included in the chart below because it was ruled

unconstitutional in 2006. The program allowed students who attended

a school given an F rating for two years out of a four-year period the

opportunity to use a voucher to attend another private or public school.

The program still exists today, but only allows students to choose within




the public system. The ruling was made because the Florida Supreme

Court claimed the program “uses public funds to provide an alternative

education in private schools that are not subject to uniformity require-

ments for public schools.” The ruling did not set a trend; no other states

have deemed vouchers unconstitutional since the Florida ruling.Location Description Enrollment

(2009)ParticipatingSchools

Milwaukee,

WI

Enacted in 1990, K-12, income

does not exceed 175% ($38,587)

of federal poverty level, funding

taken from public school system

20,328 111

Cleveland,

OH1

Enacted in 1995, K-8, no income

caps for eligibility but preference

given to those that do not exceed200% of federal poverty level

($44,100), cap of $2,250 per

voucher

5,469 39

Ohio Enacted in 2005, K-12, student

eligible if he/she attends a public

school that has been in Academic

Watch or Academic Emergency

for two years out of a three year

period

11,685 298

Louisiana Enacted in 2008, K-3, up to

$6,300, income does not exceed

250% of federal poverty level

($55,125), must have attended

“failing public school,” funded by

state government

1,195 32

Washington

D.C. Enacted in 2004, K-12, up to

$7,500, income does not exceed

185% of federal poverty level

($40,793), funded by federal

government, killed by Democrats

in 2009 for all future students but

hearings are being convened to

reopen debate on the issue

1,319 45

1 Egan. Chapter 4.

Progressive Talking Points Against Vouchers

In order to address the progressive concerns about school vouch-

ers, this paper examines six commonly made arguments against vouch-

ers. In turn, I provide evidence and arguments to counteract these claims

before making my nal proposal on policy for education reform.

a. Free-market competition will not solve the problems of our struggling




school system.

Response: Instead of being framed as the means to reforming the system,

vouchers need to be discussed as policy that will provide justice in the

education system by ensuring that every American child has an equal

right to education.

Suspicion of the free market is fundamental to the value system of most

progressives. While most publicly believe that free market capitalism is

the best economic system available, progressives strongly assert that it

must be regulated to protect and benet the citizens. Milton Friedman,

a prominent free market economist, created the concept of vouchers as

the free market prescription to the awed concept of government run

schools. He details his proposal as follows:

Here is a piece of paper you can use for the educationalpurposes of your child. It will cover the full cost per student

at a government school. It is worth X dollars towards the cost

of educational services that you purchase from parochial

schools, private for-prot schools, private nonprot schools,

or other purveyors of educational services. You may add from

your own funds to the voucher if you wish to and can afford to.

Friedman’s argument for school vouchers is constructed and justied in

the same way envisioned by the progressive left. The constant pressure

from Republicans to apply free-market principles to education reinforces

these thoughts. In addition to the reputation of faith in the free market,

Friedman’s proposals were rst attempted by Southern legislators in the

1950’s in order to maintain segregation in their schools. This piece of

history has increased suspicion of vouchers and led to fears that it would

lead to further racial segregation even when no evidence exists.

While conservatives are likely to support a program that expandsschool choice, they generally believe in implementing a system that will

provide vouchers, or at the very minimum generous tax subsidies, to all

American parents or families. To conservatives, the core of education

reform with vouchers is applying competitive pressure to public schools

as the means of reforming the public school system. According to their

ideology, public schools essentially have a monopoly on education and

therefore do not have to be efcient. They claim that only by letting the

market challenge public schools to improve will the schools be reformed.

Progressives believe education is a public good and that Republican

equality arguments for school choice use the dismal state of poor public

schools to pass legislation that gives vouchers to their wealthy constitu-




ents.

One obstacle to progressives support for a school voucher pro-

gram is the conservative advocacy for school choice. In order for a

national plan of vouchers to be passed into law it must be recognized

that while the free market will create new education opportunities, it will

not be the remedy for all of America’s public schools. While emphasis

must be on equal opportunity for progressives, emerging evidence that

free market principles and competition can benet public school sys-

tems should be acknowledged. David Figlio of Northwestern Univer-

sity describes the lack of choice in the public school system as creating

enormous inefciency in the matching of students to a particular type

of school. He writes, “in a public education system, many individuals

are forced to attend schools that differ considerably in size, academicfocus, curricular emphasis, or instructional style from the schools these

individuals would have selected in a system of fully privatized.” Vouch-

ers provide an opportunity for parents to not only nd the school with

the best academic record, but to nd one that is a better match for their

child than what the public system currently offers. Therefore, a system

of choice more efciently meets what parents demand for their children’s

education, which likely results in a more productive learning environ-

ment for the child.

In addition to empowering consumers in education, choice brings

potential of accountability to the public school system. Two different

methods of research on Milwaukee’s voucher program have concluded

that competition has had positive effects on the local public schools.

Florida’s Opportunity Scholarship Program provides more supportive

data. In multiple studies of schools that received a rating of “F” by the

Florida public school system for consecutive years, making the studentsat those schools eligible for vouchers, researchers found that the “vouch-

er threat” contributed to an increase in “F” rated school performance

and quality. Researchers Figlio and Rouse approached the studies with

suspicion because of the inuence that the stigmatization of an “F” rating

would have on the administration could be the driving force for reform,

and not the threat of school vouchers. However, they discovered, “Flori-

da had had previous experience with a stigmatizing school rating system,

in which schools were called critically low performing.” They found

that the F rating was equally stigmatizing as the previous rating system.

Therefore, the only difference in the programs that would make the data

change positively was the schools making students eligible for vouchers.




While Figlio admits the need for further examination, there is evidence

that voucher effects can improve public schools.

b. Private schools receiving vouchers have not been held accountable to

federal dollars in existing programs and would lead to massive

fraud and abuse if implemented nationally.

Response: Innovation and success in public schools can be inhibited

by overly rigid standards. Adequate federal dollars put towards

oversight would ensure that vouchers are being used legally and ef-

fectively.

Progressives cite a lack of accountability as reason for real

concern amongst private schools. The National Education Association

(NEA) writes, “The absence of public accountability for voucher fundshas contributed to rampant fraud, waste and abuse in current voucher

programs.” The NEA documents all of the fraud and waste in Milwau-

kee, Cleveland, and Florida. In the 1995-1996 school year, four of the

18 voucher schools in Milwaukee were shut down because of “fraud,

mismanagement, or negligence.” A state audit in 2000 found that nine

Milwaukee voucher schools, “have no accreditation, were not seeking

accreditation, and administered no standardized tests.” Cleveland had

similar issues with ve schools collecting, “about $1 million in vouchers

prior to completing their applications process, resulting in schools with

serious re code violations, health hazards, inadequate curricula, and un-

qualied teachers.” The NEA found other Cleveland schools acquiring

vouchers when they employed uncertied teachers. Additionally, they

found a school comprised of a coalition of parents using religious video

lessons and workbooks supplied by the Pensacola Christian Academy.

If funds are not properly allocated, the concern for fraud and ineffectivelearning is a legitimate concern.

The NEA’s detailed criticisms for a lack of enforcement reveal

this, not the vouchers, to be the problem. While much of the private

industry has been left insufciently regulated with budget cuts by federal

departments there is no reason to believe that a system of verication

could be set up and maintained to protect children and government dol-

lars. Additionally, the NEA’s insistence that certication is a require-

ment to be an effective teacher is not an objective point of view. While

creators of voucher legislation could decide what minimum requirements

teachers must have in a particular school for the school to be eligible for

vouchers, teacher certication with the U.S. government would not be a




necessity. The NEA does not acknowledge in their documents that many

of the worst schools in the country are being forced to use teacher’s aides

without college degrees because no one will take certain jobs.

In a hearing I attended during the summer of 2009 at the Center

for American Progress in Washington D.C. on teacher certication and

programs like Teach for America, the NEA consistently argued against

exibility in the education system. As a union their competitive ad-

vantage comes from being “certied,” but the rules for certication are

being exposed as extreme and a roadblock for more teachers to enter the

workforce. For example, a career engineer in the private sector would

still have to undergo a multiple year training program to be certied to

teach high school science in many states. Allowing more exibility in

teaching styles does bring risk, but as long as schools are required tomeet certain standards in order to continue receiving voucher students,

the risk should be accepted as part of what makes private schools dif-

ferent and able to be more effective with certain students. If parents are

unhappy with the school and its teachers, they can easily choose a differ-

ent school.

In the current structure of vouchers, states can choose how they want to

implement their programs. If a voucher program is to be successful the

private schools must be willing to take voucher students. There must

be a nancial incentive to take on more students, in particular higher

risk students. Concomitantly, there need to be requirements that private

schools cannot discriminate in taking students so that they only get the

highest academic achievers with the best behavior records. This is an is-

sue to be addressed in policy formation, but is able to be overcome.

c. Vouchers will pull money out of the nancially strained and desperatepublic school system.

Response: Voucher programs should be done in addition to current

education spending and reform.

Anti-voucher progressives claim that voucher programs will pull

money directly from public schools. Both Cleveland and Milwaukee

received funds for their voucher programs directly from their cities’

existing public school dollars. While Milwaukee adjusted to have 55%

of the funds come from the state, the money is still being taken from the

public school system. Progressives are steadfast advocates for increases

in education funding, but they often hit the wall of disinterest because of

lack of short-term benets and government pessimism about giving more




money to public schools. However, funding is essential to any educa-

tion reform. NCLB exemplies an ambitious program that struggled

to change the education status quo, partially because of a lack of fund-

ing. While progress often requires new laws, if the government does not

adequately fund them, in particular investing in human capital through

education, then there is no purpose in passing legislation.

The U.S. spends a signicant amount of money on schools

compared to the rest of the world. However, even more funds are needed

in many districts and must be better spent if the public school system is

going to recover. The failure of NCLB to accomplish its goals shows

that you cannot help schools by taking their necessary funds and further

dividing them. Instead of dividing existing education money and redis-

tributing public money to private schools, additional funding should beallocated to voucher programs. The cost would not be as large as it may

appear. Between federal, state, and local governments, the U.S. is pay-

ing an average of more than $10,000 per student in public schools while

the average private tuition is only $6,600. Voucher programs would

require increased bureaucracy to ensure private schools are meeting

standards and to evaluate and distribute the vouchers. However, the cost

could be substantially less per student than paying for public education

in many districts.

It would be more tting if voucher programs came from tax revenue not

already allocated to education. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship pro-

gram was paid for with new funding from the federal government, not

taken from the D.C. public school’s budget. Various progressive leaders

in D.C. were openly supportive of the program because of how fund-

ing operated. These leaders include Mayor Fenty, D.C., Public Schools

Chancellor Michelle Rhee, City Council Chair Vincent Gray, and former Mayors Anthony A. Williams and Marion Barry. In addition to using all

government funds to create government vouchers, the government could

also seek private and public money partnerships. Therefore, a program

in which the government matches any personal donations for tax refunds

should be considered because of the signicant philanthropic interest in

school vouchers.

The federal government’s jurisdiction over Washington D.C.

makes the Opportunity Scholarship Program a national indicator of how

Congress would shape nationwide voucher programs. It is fair to as-

sume a national voucher program would either provide states additional

funding or require them to raise funds outside their existing education




budgets. A lot of scrutiny has been placed on the rst sets of data from

the D.C. Opportunity Program. The studies show an improvement in

reading scores and parental satisfaction, but not much improvement else-

where. While it is unreasonable to place the future of vouchers on the

shoulders of roughly 1,000 children, the lack of indisputable and unvary-

ingly positive statistics proves that vouchers must be only an element of

reform, not the entire package.

d. School vouchers will result in private schools skimming the talented

students and involved parents out of the public school system, but leave

behind all of the most disadvantaged students.

Response: Talented students in schools that are intellectual and cul-

tural prisons should not be required to sacrice their potential in afailing school.

Former Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Spence Korte

said of vouchers in Milwaukee in 2001, “If society wants to make a

conscious decision that the role of the public schools will be to take care

of all the kids that no one else wants, then let’s say that. Let’s not back

into it because of a political agenda.” Korte saw the results of vouchers

personally and held a strong opinion that with vouchers, public schools

become more of an aid program akin to Medicaid instead of being im-

proved by increased competition in the education system. Korte’s point

is an enormous concern for progressives and the anti-voucher commu-

nity. One of the greatest links to success in functioning public schools

is parental involvement. Parental involvement is a requirement in exist-

ing voucher programs in order for a student to change schools. Thus, it

is likely that there will be a selective bias in the students who choose to

use vouchers when programs are implemented. If a voucher program isimplemented without regard for the students who do not have active par-

ents, the existing public schools will further deteriorate for the children

who are the most in need.

Much like the AYP element of NCLB, a program should be

implemented for schools that experience the departure of many suc-

cessful students. In the case of vouchers, the support programs should

be adequately funded so the problems that arise in schools because of

vouchers can be handled effectively. Schools that have large departure

of students should be restructured, heavily invested in, or closed. In

addition to other changes, those schools that remain open must retain at

least the same amount of funding they received before students left with




vouchers in order to ensure reduced class sizes. Most studies nd small-

er schools and classroom sizes to have a strong correlation with student

achievement. Whether it is paying for after-school tutoring, hiring qual-

ity teachers with extra funds, reducing class sizes, or updating facilities,

the problems in struggling schools must be addressed or they need to be

shut down.

Approximately 34% of Democratic members of Congress send

their children to private school, yet they argue that creating voucher

programs for the poor will leave the more challenged poor children in

tougher positions. In addition to the 34%, it is a given that most of the

Democrats in Congress who have children in public schools have cho-

sen where to live based on the quality of the school within a particular

district. It is discriminatory and hypocritical for progressives, includingPresident Obama, to send their children to private schools while asking

concerned parents and talented students in failing public schools to stay

in order to protect their classmates and neighbors.

Even if talent was taken from existing public schools, the situ-

ation cannot get much worse in urban public schools. Joseph Vetiritti

writes, “It might be sobering to note that the terrible nightmare imagined

by choice opponents is not a far cry from the situation that now exists,

more similar perhaps than most Americans would care to admit.” Near-

ly two-thirds of black and Hispanic public school students attend schools

in which more than 50% of students are eligible for subsidized meals,

compared with just one in ve white students. Equal opportunity is a

foundational value in the United States. An inner-city child who is intel-

ligent and has a good work ethic has a lot to overcome. Suffocating the

talent and desire by trapping the child in a failing school is unacceptable.

e. There is no clear quantitative evidence that vouchers will meet the

goals that conservatives promise.

Response: While there is no statistical consensus on the quantitative

improvement as a result of school vouchers, there are a substantial

number of researchers who have found signicantly positive results

in regards to achievement.

The problem with collecting data on current voucher programs

lies in how student achievement should be calculated. The data pool

from the few programs in the United States is not sufcient to make a

denite ruling on vouchers either positively or negatively. This is exac-

erbated by the only targeted and progressive voucher program that has




existed long enough to generate signicant data: Milwaukee. The city no

longer requires private schools using vouchers to take standardized tests.

Every city or state has many outlying factors and there are many strate-

gies to implementing vouchers that have not been utilized. It is false for

progressives to argue that no data exists to support the success of school

vouchers. However, they are correct in their assertion that there is no

widely accepted consensus. Just as the right has based their opinion on

research that argues vouchers are the necessary, the left cites research

that argues improvements are negligible and not worth the investment or

risks involved with vouchers.

David Figlio writes, “The fact that families desire different things

from their children’s schooling experiences makes it difcult to know

what the best measure of student success would be. Therefore, it isimportant to be cautious about claiming that school vouchers are unsuc-

cessful just because students who use them do not appear to be benet-

ing along certain measurable dimensions.” As mentioned above, the

Milwaukee voucher program has shown positive results in regards to

academics. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program showed positive

results in reading scores, but not math scores after three years of imple-

mentation. The body of data on academic achievement seems to indicate

that vouchers lead to minor improvements. However, Figlio raises valid

questions in the pursuit of solving the benets of vouchers. He writes,

“one possible standard for judging successful voucher programs would

be that voucher systems increase satisfaction without harming perfor-

mance along the dimensions collectively deemed to be important.” In

addition to higher academic achievement, outcomes that result from

voucher programs include better morals and character, civic participation,

safety, or measures of happiness and satisfaction.While limits to data have resulted in less than startling results

from existing voucher programs, there is substantial data on the advan-

tages of private schools. Paul Peterson of Harvard University has writ-

ten about and researched private schools extensively. His thesis in the

article, Differences between Public and Private Schools, is that private

schools have shown that they benet minorities (in particular Afri-

can Americans) more than Caucasian students. He argues that private

schools are usually more effective than public schools for three reasons.

He argues that public schools are submerged in inefcient bureaucratic

school districts and do not have to keep up with the demands of the

market. However, his insightful additions to the private school narra-




tive are the sociological and political in nature. These differences make

private schools use of money better and seek more effective educators.

The sociological differences are primarily the religious aspect offered

by private institutions. He cites the researchers Bryk, Lee, and Holland

who write, “Catholic schools benet from a network of social relations,

characterized by trust, that constitute a form of “social capital”…Trust

accrues because school participants, both students and faculty, choose to

be there.” Often, poor urban minority communities are heavily reliant on

their local churches. The opportunities to attend religious schools will

be conducive to an environment where religion is often one of the only

stable factors. Finally, Peterson believes there is a political explanation

for the advantages of private schools. He writes, “public schools are

subject to the control of elected ofcials (e.g., school boards, state schoolsuperintendents, state legislatures, members of Congress) who respond

to political pressure when formulating school policy…more attention is

given to adhering to bureaucratic guidelines than to educating students.”

He continues by arguing that private schools are under intense pressure

to satisfy parents. School ofcials know that parents choose to send their

children to that particular school, and if they are seen as failing, they will

lose students. Therefore, the intentions of private school administrators

are much more focused on education and children.

f. Private schools will lead to lower salaries, lack of quality teachers,

and instability in the work force.

Response: While the input of the teacher unions is an important ele-

ment of the process, education reform needs to be about the chil-

dren.

Teacher unions, like all unions, are designed to use their power of collective interest to gain benets and recognition. While reform is

important to teachers, they are also concerned for their own well-being.

Wages in public schools, an average of $45,542, are generally better than

in private schools, an average of $30,307. The migration of students

from a public system to a private system has progressives and teacher

unions concerned that union jobs will be lost. While eight in ten pub-

lic school teachers are unionized, only seven percent of private school

teachers belong to a teacher’s union. Teacher unions are an important

inuence on progressives because progressives are often large recipients

of teacher union dollars and are sympathetic to the concerns of teachers.

Democratic opposition to vouchers is generally blamed on union pres-




sure.

Teacher unions are one of the most powerful political forces in

the U.S. and they contribute heavily to the Democratic Party. In the

2008 election cycle, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) spent

$2.8 million dollars on candidates, more than any defense contractor.

The top two teacher unions, the AFT and the National Education As-

sociation (NEA) combined to contribute $5.27 million dollars, more

than the top ve lobbying rms combined and more than the top four oil

companies combined. The level of lobbying and money being used by

teacher unions reveals how strong their hold is on Democrats. Progres-

sives should not ignore the unions and begin to support school vouchers.

Instead, it would be more appropriate to nd out what concessions can be

made in order to appease the constituency and protect the livelihood of the millions of teachers in the United States while still promoting vouch-

ers. For example, under a voucher program, the government could re-

quire that schools eligible for vouchers must pay their teachers a certain

salary.

The teacher unions are often guilty of treating education as a workplace

and prioritizing their own interests as employees before the benets of

the children they teach. Education is an investment in human capital and

the future of the United States. Teachers must be looked after and paid

properly, but they cannot continue to block the road to reform. Progres-

sives have to be strong and avoid the inuence of money and lobbying in

their decision making about the future of the United States.

My Proposal

The rst and most important element of a voucher program is that it nds

commonalities between the right and left wing ideologues. This meansthat vouchers do not have to be, and should not be, debated as the only

way to x the struggling public school system. Once it is established that

a voucher program is an issue of rights for underprivileged children, not

the answer to all of the problems in the education system of the United

States, the debate can move to creating a common sense and bi-partisan

voucher proposal. While voucher proposals will continue to occur at the

state and local level in the short-term before a national policy is imple-

mented, my guidelines to a proposal will be tailored towards a national

voucher plan.

1. Vouchers should only be given to lower and lower middle




class families. Out of those families, the most economically chal-

lenged should receive larger vouchers.

It is necessary that a voucher program give special advantages to chil-

dren in struggling schools or who live in poor households. A voucher

system that would include federal money going to families that make

more than $200,000 would be destructive, wasteful and unnecessary.While Republicans are proposing that policy, it is possible to nd the

middle ground of limiting vouchers to certain income groups and using

sliding-scale scholarship amounts. Sliding-scale scholarships would

divide families into income brackets and provide more lucrative vouch-

ers depending on the level of poverty of the child’s family. The poverty

level would include data similar to other government aid programs like

the number of parents and incomes in the household and assets of a fami-ly. This is important because statistics and logic both suggest that a child

in a severe poverty situation is more at risk to fail in school than a child

in a mild poverty situation. Depending on the willingness to incur costs,

policymakers would need to choose a reasonable cap on income for a

child to receive a voucher. This must be chosen carefully because the

more students given vouchers the more students are competing for the

similar amount of capacity in the private system. Robert Reich suggests

the poorest 20% of families should receive a voucher, while the Ameri-

can Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) believes students should be

eligible if their family’s total annual income does not exceed 2.5 times

the income standard for reduced price lunch under federal lunch pro-

grams. The income standard for reduced price lunch is roughly $27,000

per year for a family of four. Therefore, ALEC’s proposal would gener-

ally cover families, depending on their amount of children, who make

between $50,000 and $100,000 per year or less. Within that incomeallotment there should be different amounts of vouchers. The poorest

children should have vouchers that overpay for private tuition.

The value of vouchers should be calculated by a percentage

above or below the price of tuition of the private school where the

voucher is being used. This is the only way to ensure poor families

have freedom of choice. Therefore, lowest income children should have

a voucher worth a sizeable percentage more than tuition at a particu-

lar school. This provides an economic incentive for private schools to

recruit the most challenged students. Even if every private school only

seeks out some of the most nancially strained students in order to help

offset other costs or to make a prot, the concept of a school recruiting






voucher students from a lottery is a good method for removing discrimi-

nation in the accepting of voucher students. This would allow private

schools to target low-income talent, but at the same time be forced to

accept a certain number of students of random ability and income level

below the family income cap. In order for a student to be eligible for a

lottery or to exercise choice in schools there must be a parent or guard-

ian that signs off on the school selection, and that is willing to gure out

how the student will be able to be transported to and attend a non-public

school every day. For the program to work and be efcient, the parents

must be able to make rational and educated decisions to maximize their

utility. It is essential that a very strict, clear, and thorough program is

implemented to provide information to parents and students at public

schools about their legal rights to vouchers and each of the schools fromwhich they can choose.

The obvious rst step would be requiring all participating private schools

to provide detailed information on the various aspects of their school.

However, it must be decided where parents will go to nd out informa-

tion on their child’s schooling options and what the infrastructure will

be for gathering and providing relevant and valuable information to the

student and his or her family. The way to reach the most people most

effectively would be to use the public school system to advertise op-

portunities. The public school system should focus on providing the

best education to American children, whether in a public school or not.

Therefore, the federal government should require a district ofcial or

person in every school to collect and distribute information to all eligible

families. Corruption amongst school district bureaucrats will likely oc-

cur in some cases, but it is better to police the bureaucrats then to have

people who are not familiar with education at another government ofce,such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, handling such important

information.

4. Schools with voucher students must meet some type of aca-

demic standard.

In order for private schools to be eligible to receive voucher students

they must be held to a specic academic standard. Federal dollars are

valuable in regards to education. It would be very unfortunate if a

voucher program failed because of the publicizing of money given to

private schools that do not educate effectively. This is a serious concern

for teacher unions and needs to be addressed in any legislation on school




vouchers. It is reasonable that private schools should have to meet

certain standardized testing scores, college enrollment gures, or receive

satisfactory parental surveys. However, it is important that exibility

is retained in the private market even with the existence of a voucher

system. Perhaps an evaluation policy could be established to incorporate

more than meeting a standardized test score. Regardless, it should be a

requirement that private school students take state examinations. While

some fears are valid regarding “teaching to the test” as unhealthy and

counterproductive, there is a need for some quantitative data to support

the ability of a private school to obtain voucher students. It is established

that on average private schools pay teachers less. Therefore, protection

for teachers should be put in place if a school receives school vouch-

ers. The policy needs to include means by which private school teacherscan address concerns; the right of teachers to organize must always be

protected.

5. There must be a program to aid public schools that lose a

large percentage of their students because of vouchers becoming

available.

To ensure that vouchers do not damage public schools have potential to

pass Congress, a multi-faceted program, including guidelines for clos-

ing schools, needs to be established to deal with public schools that are

heavily affected by voucher eligible students leaving the school. The

NCLB model of AYP schools is a good base upon which a strategy can

be developed. The consensus opinion argues that the failure of the AYP

standard and the implications that come every year a school does not

meet the goal comes from a lack of funding for intervention in failing

schools. In other words, it is not a problem with the model meeting theAYP standard. Public schools that have a certain percentage of their stu-

dents depart for private schools should receive increased aid for tutoring

programs, hire more qualied teachers, or update facilities when neces-

sary. If certain schools undergo a major loss of students in a short time

period there needs to be a law that explains how funding will be distrib-

uted. Clear standards should be established for when a school should

be closed as a result of a high number of students leaving or evidence of

continued underachievement.

Implementation

The key to political success is establishing a voucher proposal is




to meet the criteria just proposed. Conservatives have embraced school

choice eagerly as the means to reform the education system. Therefore,

they will be likely to support any program that increases choice. If they

grow concerned about increased government spending, or government

role in regulating private education, they have invested too much politi-

cal capital in the promise of vouchers to oppose a reasonable voucher

policy proposal. Progressives can be a part of policy making and be

leaders on the issue as they grow to understand that popular opinion,

in particular amongst minority communities, is on the side of school

choice. Additionally, they will be able to qualify their previous dismissal

of vouchers by advocating for a new type of proposal in which vouch-

ers are a part of a greater system of reform and not a perfect solution, as

proposed by the Republicans.

Conclusion

The American political system is not conducive to creating and sustain-

ing the best public schools in the world; children do not vote or donate

to campaigns. Our system of governance does not address long-term

problems with long-term solutions, because constituents want to see

concrete benets as they approach elections every two or six years.

Public schools and policies to benet children are long-term investments

that have countless positive effects, but they cannot be condensed into

30-second advertisements. The benets are not only not materialized

quickly enough for political benet, but the costs usually do not appear

for years, allowing politicians to advert the blame when they abandon

children. Public schools are essential to our democracy and will be

preserved. This is not anti-public education, because private schools are

not always better. My proposal is for school choice to allow low-incomefamilies to use a voucher for any public school, charter school, or private

school. Additionally, I do not support any voucher program that takes

funding away from existing public schools.

Vouchers are about the rights for children and their families

to have the same choices that wealthy families have had for decades.

Vouchers are also an important step toward ensuring equal opportunity

to succeed. The greatest indicator of success in the United States should

not be the income of one’s parents, but one’s willingness to work hard.

Progressives that are not corrupted by campaign contributions, or naïve

on the capacity of government to work in the short-term, must take the

lead to create a quality voucher policy for the lower class in the United




States. Vouchers will not solve all the problems of the education sys-

tem in America, but they are a part of the solution that will reach the

progressive goals in education of substantially reducing the racial and

socioeconomic achievement gap, increasing overall performance and

amount of candidates for college, and reestablishing the United States

as a leader in educational performance in comparison to the interna-

tional community.

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Information/OSP/

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<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/05/AR2006010501983.html>.

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nea.org/home/17011.htm>.

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<http://reason.com/archives/2005/12/01/the-father-of-modern-school-re>.

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parchoice.cfm>.

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Egan. Chapter 4.

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org/programs/index.html>.

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2010. Web. <http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/02/obama_and_vouchers.

html>.

Egan. Appendix 4.





84 Rebutting the Rebuttal

Rebutting the Rebuttal: A Discussion of Chris Rhodenbaugh’s

“Should a Progressive Support Vouchers?”

Christy Haller

Let’s begin where Rhodenbaugh began, it’s true, education

policy is stuck in the trenches of partisan banter. What’s not these days?

I commend Rhodenbaugh’s open-mindedness as a Progressive, if more

politicians were willing to sincerely consider the opposing opinion as

he has done, maybe there would be an increase in bi-partisan measures.

Maybe. While his paper raises legitimate concerns that both parties have,

it fails to provide a convincing response to anti-voucher concerns. Its

suggestions are non-specic, at times contradictory, and it lacks a com-prehensive outline of just how voucher programs should be implemented

nationally. However, this may not be a fault of the paper so much as it is

a fault of the construction of American education. Just as this paper has

found it difcult to parse out the intricacies of federal funding and the

federal government’s role in education, so have policymakers. Perhaps

the U.S. government’s foremost goal regarding education policy should

not be to decide how much money it dolls out to schools but to instead

decide what specic role it is willing and capable of assuming in the edu-

cation of the nation’s children. Although I am not convinced by Rhoden-

baugh’s arguments, he is correct in stating that vouchers can, at best, be

only part of the solution for education reform. It would be unfair to think

otherwise. This paper is unmistakably valuable; it re-opens the conversa-

tion about the currently unacceptable state of American education. It’s a

conversation that we as a country cannot afford to ignore.

One of the claims that Rhodenbaugh relies heavily upon through-out the paper is that school choice allows for an increase in account-

ability in the public school system. He uses a study on Florida’s Oppor-

tunity Scholarship program to conclude that because schools that had an

F rating did not improve solely because they did not want to have the

stigma of having an F rating, the only logical explanation for why they

improved was due to the voucher system that was concurrently imple-

mented. He makes this assumption without providing any evidence that

the voucher system had any casual effect on the school improvements.

Although he admits the weakness of this study, it is more problematic

that he does not dene school improvement here or later in the paper.

Rhodenbaugh suggests in his fourth recommendation that exibility,



85Rebutting the Rebuttal

supposedly by way of a very general “evaluation policy,” must be main-

tained while requiring private schools to administer state examinations to

their students. Without the ability to quantitatively measure and compare

the effectiveness of voucher programs, it would be impossible for a Pro-

gressive to have an informed change of heart, even if they are, “willing

to accept any structural reform if it is clear that it will meet education

policy goals.”

Rhodenbaugh proposes that vouchers will apply competitive

pressures that will encourage schools to improve, while at the same time

suggesting that public schools should not receive less funding as students

leave the schools. He argues that distributing vouchers to students that,

for all intents and purposes encourage them to change schools, will al-

low the schools they leave behind to reduce their class sizes, hire morequalied teachers, and update facilities. All these improvements may in

fact happen, and perhaps overcrowding in schools is the primary problem

facing failing schools. However, continuing to fund failing schools with

the same amount of money they were given prior to the voucher students

leaving, negates the idea of having competitive pressures. If schools are

given the same funding, what are the market pressures that encourage

them to improve? Furthermore, even if they do seek to improve due to

the possibility of a looming school closure, there is nothing to encour-

age them to improve beyond just above failing. In this model, it is in the

school’s best interest to be at best, mediocre; that is what is most cost ef-

cient. So long as they improve enough to not be considered failing, they

will continue to receive the same funding.

As is the case with most reform initiatives, nding and securing a

sustainable source of funding presents a signicant challenge to the lon-

gevity of this program. Using Rhodenbaugh’s numbers and suggestions,a public school that lost students to vouchers, would still receive the

same amount of money they did before the X number of students left. In

addition to this cost, Rhodenbaugh proposes that an additional $7,500 to

$10,000 be made available per student who qualies for a voucher. This

is not to mention his explanation that each public school student costs

the government approximately $10,000 per year. Under his plan, voucher

students are paid for twice, costing the government approximately

double the amount of a non-voucher student. Furthermore, additional

costs would be incurred if as he suggests, cash rewards were offered to

schools that accepted voucher students. Although he briey mentions

that vouchers could be nanced through a combination of federal dol-



86 Rebutting the Rebuttal

lars and philanthropic donations, it is unclear how such a vast increase in

funding needs would be accomplished.

Perhaps Rhodenbaugh’s most egregious suggestion is that private

schools should not be allowed to deny admission to a student based on

the student’s academic achievement or behavioral record. The very fact

that private schools are private gives them the right to choose to whom

they grant admission; more importantly for this discussion, it gives them

the right to choose whether or not they want to accept voucher students

at all. Even with my background as a public school student, I recognize

and respect a private school’s right to choose its own admissions stan-

dards. Just as universities set their own subjective admissions standards,

so may private schools. Arguably there is a need to distinguish between

K-12 schools and universities, however when both receive federal fund-ing, it becomes a highly subjective distinction. It appears that the govern-

ment’s only constitutional ability to prevent private schools from setting

their own admissions standards would come from withholding federal

funding assuming that is an applicable situation.

Rhodenbaugh mentions that one of the concerns of implement-

ing voucher programs is that it will remove high achieving students

from schools, subsequently creating an environment of disadvantaged

and poorly performing students. As a rebuttal to this concern, he sug-

gests that top performing students should not be held in “intellectual and

cultural prisons,” and should instead be given the opportunity to receive

a higher quality education. According to the Congressional Progressive

Caucus, as quoted by Rhodenbaugh, “every child in America…is entitled

to the same, high quality, educational opportunities.” The caucus does

not distinguish between high and low performing students. Furthermore,

as he also argues in the paper, it is often the most disadvantaged studentswho benet most from a private school education. Thus, his rebuttal to

the fourth talking point is grossly contrary to the Congressional Progres-

sive Caucus’s mission to provide equal education to all students; a point

which he attempts to justify by claiming that even by skimming failing

schools of their top talent, the situation in urban public schools could not

get much worse.

While the paper makes a strong point that teacher unions do

not always serve the best interests of the students, it is irresponsible

to not acknowledge the necessity for teacher training and certication

programs. The paper presents the example of an experienced engineer

who despite many years of industry experience must complete a lengthy



certication process in order to be an accredited teacher. Although there

is an argument for introducing innovative and creative teaching methods

to better serve a variety of students, any program that makes it too easy

for untrained people to become teachers will not best serve the needs of

American students. It should be added to his paper that there would need

to be a standardization of what constitutes a highly qualied or certi-

ed teacher. Rhodenbaugh provides a good proposal in suggesting that

a minimum salary would be required for teachers who are potentially

un-unionized and work in a school that accepts vouchers. This highlights

the importance and potential of creating a plan that is collaborative and is

supported by both parents and teachers.

This paper provides us with a highly ambitious proposal for

extending the implementation of voucher programs in America’s mostunderprivileged school districts. Although it aims to be as comprehensive

as possible, it seems to nd itself having the same problems policymak-

ers have: how do we get everyone to buy into the proposals and how do

we pay for it? Though I doubt that his rebuttals to Progressives’ talking

points against vouchers are convincing enough to convert the masses,

he does force us to consider how strongly America believes that qual-

ity education is a public good. Most importantly, Rhodenbaugh sees the

potential for movement beyond a deadlock of political ideologies. Now

that’s encouraging.

Documents

Beyond Politics: Addressing Forgotten Issues (Spring 2010)