For any member of Congress seeking re-election, negotiating deals with other Congressmen and lobbyists on Capitol Hill (the “hill style”) is just as important as courting the constituency (the “home style”) is in getting votes. A candidate’s value to his constituency lies within his ability to “bring home the bacon”- pass beneficial federal legislation for his supporters or future supporters- while serving as an effective legislator on the hill to formulate national policy. These are often in conflict, and a savvy Congressman will know how to balance the two in order to insure his re-election through his words, his votes, and his bills. (Fenno, Mayhew)

Money, “the mother’s milk of politics,” is necessary for critical campaign functions (paying for travel, releasing literature, buying expensive media air-time, etc.) This is not without statistical and logical proof: candidates who spent the most money on their campaigns won 95% of House and 94% of Senate contests (Opensecrets.org). Though candidates may fund themselves with their own personal property or individual contributions, campaign money is frequently “earned” on Capitol Hill. A Congressman’s promises, votes, committee appointments, and actions on the Hill all play a role in the attention (money) he receives from PACs (Political Action Committees). Generally, a Congressman sitting in the House Committee on Agriculture would likely receive a campaign contribution from an Agricultural PAC, such as the Texas Farm Bureau, with the implicit understanding that he will favorably review the contributor PAC’s desired legislation. How money enters a candidate’s coffers, then, is a very potent way of discerning what and to whom a politician’s real promises are. The existence of committees follows a “distributional theory” of their purpose: they are created, beside their technical informational function, to give lawmakers policy influence that assists in their re-election, whether it is in attaining these campaign contributions, or passing bills for constituencies back at home (Herrera Lecture Notes).

The incumbency in any Congressional race is a formidable foe; with actions to back their words along with committee assignments to draw PAC money, availability of staff, name recognition and reputation from previous campaigns, and other special privileges, incumbents wield a very large edge over potential challengers. Challengers must be able to stand up monetarily against the incumbent “war chest” (funds gathered over the years of the term), including leaping over financial hurdles such as primary elections. A “quality” challenger will be able to generate enough funds to match the incumbents’ in effectiveness (using his own personal wealth, which is often necessary), while attaining or using previous name recognition and political experience to attract voters. (Lecture Notes)

Because the electorate typically does not have the interest or means to investigate the merits of candidates in Congressional races, the media is usually the only outlet for information to reach the majority of voters. While preference for “biased” networks as a demographic might harm a candidate, typically the media (that is not directly on a candidate’s payroll) only significantly damages a campaign when it widely publicizes scandal. As a conduit for messages from candidates, however, the media is critical. Attack ads vilify opponents while spreading name recognition, and effective ad campaigns, both by “targeting” and skillful design can make or break a victory.

Finally, the demographics of a district (or state, in the case of Senate races) can work in favor of candidates. Descriptive demographics, such as ethnicity and race, allow minority candidates easier identification with voters, or even guaranteed victory in majority-minority districts (Fenno, pg. 11). More frequently, demographical advantages encompass substantive aspects of the population. For example, in a district composed mostly of blue-collar workers, a labor-oriented, pro-union platform will likely win the election.

This paper examines the reelection of three incumbent US Congressmen: House representative Timothy H. Bishop (D-NY), Senator George Voinovich (R-OH), and House representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL, District 25).

Timothy H. Bishop House Races

In the 2002 Midterm elections, Timothy H. Bishop, the Provost of Southampton College, captured New York’s US House District 1 seat in a tight race against Republican incumbent Felix J. Grucci. Though out-raised by over $400,000 by his opponent, Bishop managed to attack Grucci’s record, particularly on environmental issues, and win by a 50-49% margin (Opensecrets.org).On a narrow, vulnerable alley of victory, Bishop would have to begin rallying a weak constituency while working on Capitol Hill as a freshman Congressman with no prior political experience.

Ideologically speaking, Bishop generally voted party-line Democrat on “the big issues”; According to the PAC rating system, he was rated 100% by NARAL, indicating a pro-choice voting record; 30% by the US COC, indicating an anti-business voting record; 100% by the LCV, indicating pro-environment votes; 16% by the Christian Coalition: an anti-family voting record; 100% by APHA, indicating a pro-public health record; 100% by SANE, indicating a pro-peace voting record; 0% by FAIR, indicating a voting record loosening immigration; 100% by the AFL-CIO, indicating a pro-labor voting record; 100% by the ARA, indicating a pro-senior voting record; and 19% by NTU, indicating a “Big Spender” on tax votes (Bishop OnTheIssues). Not surprisingly, his PAC contributions for the 2003-2004 election cycle were in line with his actions on Capitol Hill. During his term, he was assigned to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Education and the Workforce. The top three contributors to his campaign were transportation unions, retirement interest groups, and public sector unions, respectively. Bishop was also a top House recipient of contributions from architectural services, miscellaneous unions, pro-choice PACs, teachers’ unions, and transport unions (5^th, 4^th, 2^nd, 4^th, and 3^rd) (Opensecrets.org, Bishop: Campaign Finance/Money). In analysis of the contribution data, votes, and committee assignments, it is fair to say that Bishop acted in a politically consistent manner for his first term.

Challenging what appeared to be Bishop’s shaky incumbency, William Manger, a former Southampton Village trustee and senior policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Transportation, attempted to make a stand in the evenly-divided district (NYGOP). In a humorous article published in The North Shore Sun, Gregory Zeller points out a few problems in Manger’s campaign:

Never mind that the person on the street can’t grasp Mr. Manger’s political positions, or even pick him out of a lineup. Besides the little snippet at the end of his TV commercials (“I’m Bill Manger and I approved this message”), we can barely recognize his voice — and we’re the media! In an election season! And he’s running for the U.S. Congress in our district! Shouldn’t he be kissing our butt, or at least taking our calls?

The article, appropriately titled “Who is Bill Manger?,” exposes the fundamental failure to achieve the first and most important factor in any race: name recognition. Certainly, by not reaching out to the grassroots media such as The North Shore Sun, he was not pushing any harder toward that goal. Where Manger managed to stand tallest was in fundraising, but he could not stand tall enough; while Congressman Bishop managed to raise and spend over $1.9 million, Manger’s campaign could only generate $1.4 million (with a generous 17% of that contributed by the candidate himself). Even Bishop, with an “anti-business” PAC rating, outstripped the pro-business Republican ticket in business PAC contributions by over 100%, while almost absolutely dominating labor (a whopping $378,206 to $5,575!) (Opensecrets.org). From examining the 2002 Bishop-Grucci race, any quality challenger might have been able to defeat the very vulnerable and inexperienced freshman, or perhaps narrowed the margin of loss. Manger simply ran an ineffective, impotent campaign, and it is not unlikely that a majority of his votes came more from party loyalty than “swing” voters.

While objective press coverage on the race was fairly limited, a large number of local Long Island newspapers ran editorials, many of them denouncing the Manger campaign for launching fallacious attacks on Bishop’s credibility. As Grucci did in 2002, Manger ran a fierce attack ad campaign that ended in tragic discredit and loss of key votes. Bishop was accused of running Southampton College into a $55 million deficit and bankruptcy (which never happened), and furthermore baselessly charged with failing “to support the troops” in Iraq and Afghanistan (Kelly, “Bishop & Manger…”). The Suffolk Times passed an editorial endorsement of Bishop 4 days before the election:

When a candidate has no record to run on and little more than platitudes to reflect what he or she stands for, voters can expect a negative campaign. And that’s exactly what they’ve gotten from Bill Manger, whose nasty attack ads have sunk almost to the level of Felix Grucci’s 2002 campaign. Voters in the 1st C.D. rightfully rejected it then, and they should again.

Indeed, Manger was making the same mistake that had been made in 2002. “Mr. Manger’s ads personify everything that is wrong with the electoral process. They are distorted, they are mean-spirited and they are another example of the win-at-any-cost mentality that has come to make the American voter despise politicians,” states an editorial on bishopforcongress.com. What had made Grucci lose by a 1% margin was only deepening the new GOP challenger’s failure to capitalize on a contested seat.

Demographically, District 1 had no important characteristics beside party affiliations, which was an approximate 50/50 split between registered Republicans and Democrats. The race appeared to be entirely determined by candidate strength and appeal to swing voters, and most issues at stake were untouched by the presidential coattails which only served to solidify partisan votes.

Though not nearly as vulnerable as he was after his slim victory in 2002, Bishop will have to continue striving to satisfy his constituency to re-elect him in 2006. It was by luck and the incompetence of his opponents in the two previous elections that he was victorious. Even with two terms of experience, Bishop may still be defeated if a quality challenger with a substantive agenda and the right criticisms capitalizes on the still-small 6% margin. For the time being, however, he appears to be doing a good job creating loyal voters by “bringing home the bacon”: “Over the course of his first two-year term in the House of Representatives, Tim Bishop has established that he’s responsive to the needs of his constituents and knows how to deliver for them.” (Suffolk Times endorsement).

George Voinovich Gubernatorial Races

Senator George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, has a rich history of political experience, having served a series of local government posts from 1963 until his election to the governorship of Ohio in 1990. After serving two terms as governor, he ran for the state’s vacated Senate seat against Mary O. Boyle, whom he surpassed by over $5 million in fund-raising ($7,780,850 to $2,230,820) and defeated with a 56.5% to 43.5% vote (ProjectVoteSmart). By the 2004 election, Voinovich would be an extremely formidable incumbent holding a seat in a battleground state.

In comparison to his opponent, Eric D. Fingerhut, Voinovich absolutely dominated campaign finance; while the Senator conjured $10,071,214, his Democrat opponent could only come up with a meager $1,171,559. Undoubtedly, Voinovich’s tenure in the Senate (and visibly strong incumbency) gave him a broad coalition of financial allies. Aside from the typical GOP big-business ensemble, such as the manufacturing sectors (over $633,000 combined), health professionals ($354,041), and assorted financial/insurance/real-estate interests ($1,329,135), he gathered money from interest groups that would typically support his opponents. Despite a 0% rating by the ARA (indicating an “anti-senior” voting record), his number one group of contributors was ironically retirees, providing over $500,000 to his campaign, and he gathered almost twice as much as Fingerhut did from Labor PACs. In his Senate term from 1998-2004, Voinovich sat on committees for Environment and Public Works and Small Business, which drew contributions from energy and mining companies ($638,000) and miscellaneous businesses (over $1m) (Opensecrets.org).

Fingerhut, the Democratic nominee, had previous political experience as a State Senator in Ohio from 1991-1992, from which he resigned to serve a term in the US House (1993-1994), and then served another State Senate term from 1998-2004. Though not an unseasoned legislator, Fingerhut’s repertoire would not stand well against the political behemoth in Voinovich. By mid-2003, Fingerhut’s statewide name recognition was a paltry 45%, standing against Voinovich’s 99% and potential celebrity contender Jerry Springer’s 98% (OCC Government Affairs). Whether or not Fingerhut was simply a quality challenger pitted against an even higher-quality opponent, he did not clock a quality challenger’s performance. In the presidential battleground of Ohio, in which George Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry in a narrow 51-49% victory, George Voinovich defeated Democrat Eric Fingerhut in a 64-36% landslide. Not even the presidential coattails could save Fingerhut’s doomed campaign.

For future elections, it appears that Voinovich will plainly be invincible, barring full-blown scandal or outright treason. He has experience on the Hill, has raised millions of dollars before, and is reputable as a policymaker, while his constituents know him and idolize him as the man who saved Cleveland from bankruptcy in 1979. As one organization puts it: “Everything Senator Voinovich does have as its goal improving the lives of the people of Ohio. The simple question, “How does it help Ohio?” has always been central to his work.” (JAG)

Mario Diaz-Balart House Races

After serving in the Florida House of Representatives, Mario Diaz-Balart ran for Florida’s District 25 US House seat in 2002 as a Republican candidate, defeating Annie Betancourt 65%-35%. Largely backed by the standard Republican arsenal- business, finance, health- Diaz-Balart collected over $1m in campaign funds against Betancourt’s $170,000. These contributions would set the tone for Diaz-Balart’s 2002-2004 term, and subsequent uncontested victory in the 2004 election cycle.

Despite having no challenger, Diaz raised funds to campaign in the interest of his own career, and made a respectable showing of $544,127, more than some candidates raise in actual races. During his 2002-2004 term, he served on the Budget, Transportation and Infrastructure committees, securing some contributions from the antsy financial sector (about $25,000) and assorted transportation and construction interests ($84,000). The remainder consisted of the standard Republican guns (no pun intended). (Opensecrets.org)

It is easy to speculate why nobody rose to challenge Diaz-Balart in 2004. An incumbents’ strength for his next election is usually identifiable primarily from his margin of victory in the previous, both by count of vote and monetary support. In this case, the race ended with a huge margin of victory on both accounts (30% margin of victory and $1 million raised for a beginner’s US House race). Diaz represents a large portion of District 25, the Republican Cuban-American community, both substantively and descriptively. Especially after his “free ride” in 2004, 2006 will prove to be difficult to lose for this up-and-coming politician.

The post Three Case Studies in Congressional and Gubernatorial Elections appeared first on Rare Essays.

Lobbying can be generally defined as the expenditure of resources by a firm or group of firms in order to secure a favorable political or legal environment for their activities. Though lobbying actions are most frequently geared toward achieving preferable domestic policies, larger governments with regional or international influence can be petitioned for favorable foreign policies. Domestic interest groups attempt to gain, often indirectly, economic benefits through a government’s exclusive diplomatic channels. Governments often hold a great deal of information unknown to the private sector, as well as direct contacts with officials and lawmakers of foreign countries. As monopolists of force, states also reserve the threat of war as a means to their ends. Economic interest groups can, instead of expending resources on adjusting their business to market conditions, expend those resources on adjusting market conditions to their business (“rent-seeking”).

For markets, lobbying has profound implications. The law has nearly limitless potential to interfere in the economy. Where there is this capability, laws become a commodity to be bought and sold. A fundamental error to make is to think that politics are non-quantifiable and non-economic. To quite the contrary, political structures are simply markets in which the rules are different (albeit radically at times). “Political entrepreneurship” becomes as much a skill as innovation in one’s industry: if the principal goal is profit for a group of people, then a dollar earned productively or coercively is, other things equal, the same.

The United States is the prime example of a powerful nation whose foreign dealings and economic policies are highly responsive to special interests. Both the structures of the electoral system and the government’s coercive powers grant a significant level of policymaking access to private organizations. A thorough examination of the government’s scope of powers, the structure of policymaking institutions, and the long-term trend of increasing reported lobbying expenditure reveals considerable evidence that political proficiency is part of an essential set of skills for the modern U.S. multinational corporation.

A Model of Multinationals and Lobbying

The political sphere is even more immensely complicated in the absence of the premises upon which the free market functions. Political structures frequently alienate the agent from the results of his actions (or inaction) in some way. The chief structure that causes this alienation is bureaucracy, partly via “diffusion of responsibility” effect. While this phenomenon occurs to some degree in free markets with large firms,[2] it is less of a problem, because productive deficiencies are more quickly answered by declines in profits and labor market adjustments. The obstacle is most often described as the principal-agent problem, which is especially pronounced in government. Whereas in the private sector, the “principal” at hand is concerned with easily quantifiable profits, the objectives of government institutions are much more specific, varied, and difficult to measure. On one hand, firms are naturally controlled by productivity, and in turn, profits; on the other, governments are validated simply by force and by the cost inefficiency of rapid change (revolution). Though democracies require input from the entire population, their input is channeled through a central decision-making and enforcement process; this should not be mistaken for the kind of integration of dispersed information that markets have. The end-state of a market is the product of an aggregation of many individuals associating in ways that benefit them individually, each person possessing a small amount of resources (relative to the rest of the economy). Alternatively, the end-state of government is the product of a pre-established institutional structure (e.g., a constitution) determining how to allocate a large amount of resources.
That the agents involved in government seek the maximization of their individual utility should not be ignored. In fact, this is the core assumption that does not differ between private and public activity. The agent does not change; only his constraints do. Though this view may appear to some as cynical, the basic intuition behind it is that while the costs of some kinds of choices may differs, an agent’s preferences generally do not change upon attaining public office. As might be argued, a sense of duty or responsibility (conscience?) may develop, altering the agent’s utility function. Nevertheless, it is clearly too limited to overcome the bureaucratic risk-reward gap.

For purposes of simplicity, we will assume that firms as a whole attempt to maximize their profits, without the risk of individual actors in the firm placing their own individual benefit above the firm’s profit (e.g. no corrupt CEOs trying to swindle shareholders). The objective of this investigation is to examine the specific nature of the relationship between rational market actors and government institutions.
It was stated earlier that laws are a commodity to be bought and sold. Beyond mere metaphor, we can construct a model that recognizes that political institutions are entities that possess the ability to, ceteris paribus, exogenously impose any desired condition of operation on market processes. Because these institutions are operated by individuals who are factually no different than market actors, the result is that these individuals possess some degree of that exogenous power for use at their own discretion. They are liable for what they do with it, but not completely. It is this discrepancy that subjects policymaking to a certain level of autonomy, and thus subjects it to market forces. From these assumptions, we can model the lobby-subsidy process.

The interaction between firms and the government can be summarized by the following model, beginning with a firm’s basic profit function:

p_d = p_m + s – E_L                                                                                                    (1)

A domestic firm’s profit, p_d, is a linear function of the firm’s exogenous market profit (p_m), plus subsidies (s), minus lobbying expenditure (E_L). Prior to any government assistance, a firm makes a certain level of profit; they can then receive more profits via subsidy from the government, but must count their expenditure in attaining those subsidies against them. E_L is not only meant to contain formalized lobbying spending conducted through institutions established for that purpose, but any expenditure of resources on attempting to influence political outcomes (the primary means being appeals to officeholders’ individual interests). E_L includes election campaign contributions to candidates who promise to reflect their contributors’ interests and any promises of special employment or other benefits after a policymaker’s term in office. It also consists of the payment of lawyers to assist policymakers in drafting the language of policies and experts to assist in implementation.

Next, we must consider the interests of the policymaker, and his obligation to the public:

U_g = rE_L – f(C_p)^a                                                                                                    (2)

The government policymaker’s utility, U_g, is the difference between the benefits received from private interests and a penalty caused by institutional mechanisms for public accountability. The first component is the product of some proportion r times the firm’s lobbying expenditure E_L, representing the amount of E_L that government agents “capture” for their own gain. Lower values for r tend to indicate more reliable institutional structures separating private from public interests. If r had a value of one, lobbying expenditure would essentially be direct bribery in exchange for arbitrary decree. The more that a firm has to spend in figuring out how the law works, what kind of law would benefit them the most, and other institutional intricacies, the lower r is.

The second component constitutes the role of the public in holding policymakers accountable for their decisions. It is the product of some proportion f times the perceived cost (to the public) of a policy, raised to an exponent a. a can be taken to represent the level of public attentiveness and responsiveness to how their tax dollars are used, and it is assumed that a ≥ 1 (if it were otherwise, the public would penalize the government marginally less for each extra dollar it spends- an absurd outcome). f represents the institutional manifestation of the public’s attitude: the higher it is, the more sensitive policymaking must be to public opinion. We also constrain this parameter between 0 and 1, for practical purposes.

Thus far, we only defined public opinion as a function of the perceived cost of a subsidy, which is actually defined by the actual cost of the subsidy minus some error:

C_p = C_s – u_i                                                                                                                                                (3)

Moreover, the cost of a subsidy is the quotient of the subsidy’s value over some efficiency proportion F > 0:

s = F*Cs                                                                                                                (4)

Thus, substituting (4) into (3) and then into (2), we have

U_g = rE_L – f(S/F – u_i)^a                                                                                             (5)

F represents how cost-effectively the government can perform the policy at hand. u_i indicates the level of misinformation the public has about the cost of a subsidy.

Taking the first-order conditions of each equation (i.e. optimizing firm profits and government utility with respect to the choice variables, s and E_L), we attain an equilibrium level of s:

s = ((r*F/a*f)^1/(a-1) + ui)*F                                                                                      (6)

From this, general intuition can be drawn about how each parameter affects the equilibrium subsidy value- in more plain language, how institutional, economic, and political environments determine the incentive structure for policymakers’ behavior. In short, differentiating with respect to each parameter individually yields the following results: greater government efficiency increases subsidies (dF/ds > 0); structural corruption increases s (dr/ds > 0); misinformation increases s (du_i/ds > 0); Public responsiveness decreases s (da/ds < 0); and strong public institutions decrease s (df/ds < 0).

The model operates on a short-run, ad hoc basis; the equilibrium value reflects optimization from a single firm’s perspective at a particular point in time. Appropriately, the parameters differ depending on the specific firm’s (or industry’s) case, the institutional nature of the policy in question, the public attitude toward the symbolic issues, etc. For the most part, this is concordant with the reality of the assumed profit-maximizing firms: they are willing to gain at anyone else’s expense. Overall, the model given above is not intended to deal with quantitative specifics, but to create an overarching cost-benefit analysis of one method of altering a firm’s profits: exploiting politics. It is sufficiently abstract to accommodate any form of government which allows for some degree of private property, whether it is a dictatorship or a modern liberal democracy; the parameters are what change, but not the logic.

Symbolic vs. Instrumental Policy as tools for economic gain

With quantitative reasoning in mind, we can begin to examine the qualitative aspects of the lobby-subsidy process. The distinction between “symbolic” and “instrumental” policy, a concept outlined by Murray Edelman in The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1964), is critical to fully understanding how MNCs (or any special interests, for that matter) can successfully have their private interests supported by government policies, even when those policies are detrimental to the public as a whole. He discusses the reality of the gap between the symbols invoked when policy decisions are being made and the actual instrumental, material status of such policies (i.e. what kinds of resource transfers the policy entails). These symbols are aimed at triggering conditioned responses, and are meant to be a substitute for the actual things they represent. For example, “the elimination of poverty” is supposed to trigger a positive response in favor of a policy, but its implementation may in fact be a tax break for the wealthy.

In accordance with that idea, important lobbying strategy lies in promoting favorable ideas to support firm or industry-specific goals. The aim is to achieve ideological or empirical consensus in policymakers and in, more importantly, the public. While some expenditure for this objective is through private organizations, the end result when it is successful is a favorable alteration of the law.[3]

Besides the standard range of direct government benefits which multinational corporations seek for their domestic markets (direct subsidies, tax breaks, etc.), MNCs often pursue policies that positively affect their standing as international companies (or negatively affect their competitors’). This could mean, for example, arguing for a tariff that may not be necessarily to inhibit a rival’s trade, but to make its production inputs more expensive if it depends heavily on outsourced components. MNCs can lobby for direct negotiations or even the use of force between its home country and a potential host country in order to increase its stock of investment abroad. These are but two examples of the many ways in which MNCs can attain indirect subsidies, whose legislative elements frequently obscure their ultimate beneficiaries who, in public discussion, are supplanted by symbolic language.

U.S. MNC Lobbying in the 90s to the Present

American institutions have a long history of lobbying, beginning in essence with the first amendment of the Constitution: “[Congress shall make no law abridging] the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Increasing demand for lobbyists in the late 1980s led to a growth in popularity of the practice, and the “Washington Game” began to perpetuate itself. The high demand also changed the traditional viewpoint that it was inappropriate for former elected officials to become lobbyists. Since 1998, 43 percent of the 198 members of Congress who are no longer in any elected office have registered as lobbyists at least once.[4] The overall result of this evolution is the ever-increasing presence of private money circulating in public affairs. The bottom line is that to the American politician, money matters greatly. In the 2002 midterm elections, candidates who spent more money than their opponents won 95% of all contested House seats and 75% of all Senate seats.[5]

In context of the model provided, there are many examples of the significant influence of multinational corporations on economic policy. America, despite being considered the most laissez-faire major power, is a massive provider of corporate welfare. A symbolic and instrumental assessment of most recent U.S. policy relating to multinationals bears very strong explanatory power. Partisan politics serve as a major front for symbolic stratification of policy. Generally, at least some semblance of connection between the larger stated ideological issues and the actual policies must exist. Though members of both the Democrat and Republican parties regardless receive immense contributions from multinationals, the prime political actors on behalf of large MNCs usually consist of Republicans, likely due to their ideological platforms which usually involve deregulation, trade liberalization, belief in the strength of entrepreneurship, and so forth. These beliefs, ironically, are used as the symbols to mask the economic interventionism of subsidizing large MNCs.

Given the general claims stated up to this point, the next inquiry must be into their actual historical relevance: what contemporary examples are there of MNCs demonstrating a palpable influence on U.S. policy? The difficulty of finding information on the topic is testament to the transparency that MNCs often enjoy in their lobbying activities, at least in regards to the general public. To discover the appropriate connections, one must integrate diffuse pieces of information from diverse sources in order to draw the connection between a particular firm’s action and how a government policy was determined. Furthermore, lobbying disclosure law is only relatively new, with the Lobbying Disclosure Act having been only passed in 1995. Besides the fact that lobbying activities falling under the guidelines of the law were sometimes underreported (especially during the first few years), there are still many methods of lobbying that have no legal disclosure requirements. These include “revolving door” offers, personal favors, insider information, and other transactions that frequently have no official paper trail. Discovering these obscure relationships beyond mere speculation is a matter of intensive research, including investigative reporting across many sources that only provide small amounts of information individually. For now, we will briefly explore two major and well-known contemporary examples of multinational industries that engage in and profit from abundant political activity: pharmaceuticals and petroleum.

The pharmaceuticals and health products industry constituted the largest portion of reported political contributions in 1998-2006, spending over $1 million. Their critical policy objectives focus on international recognition of “intellectual property” rights to their drugs, in order to undermine cheaper competitive drugs which cut into their market shares, and the elimination of price controls caused by growing desires for healthcare guarantees.[6]

The pharmaceutical industry deals primarily with products that prolong or improve the bodily well-being of humans. In most societies, the act of “saving lives” is a moral priority, or at least a noble deed. It is no surprise, then, that all related policies are couched in strongly symbolic terms. Their public claims are broadly reflected by statements such as “without [assistance on this issue] from government, expensive research on important drugs will stop and many life-saving implements will not be available.”

The industry’s influence on international trade is very palpable and significant. Its trade association, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) includes Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Merck & Co Inc., primarily functioning as a means to increase transparency of individual companies’ political influence. PhRMA has filed 59 lobbying reports concerning the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, more than any other organization historically. Drafts of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement echo the pharmaceutical industry’s sentiments about price controls and intellectual property. Under its provisions, member nations will be required to comply with deregulated pricing and international patent laws. An examination of the voting record for implementing DR-CAFTA demonstrates almost unanimous votes along party lines: only 15 Democrats voted for the measure, and only 27 Republicans voted against it.[7] Furthermore, in light of CAFTA in 2005, Guatemala was pressured to repeal a law that would allow for increased marketing of generic drugs as long as the drugs were demonstrated to behave like approved drugs. The U.S. ambassador to Guatemala issued presented an ultimatum: Guatemala had to change its law to provide the clinical study data exclusivity mandated by CAFTA, or the U.S. Congress would not allow them membership.[8]

The oil industry, especially in extraction and transportation, is the beneficiary of a large amount of both direct and indirect subsidies. Two of the most significant (relating to their international position) are in the use of government resources in protecting their assets abroad as well as expanding their potential asset base, and in their lack of responsibility for environmental externalities caused by the consumption of fossil fuels.

The physical security of oil drills, pipelines, and shipping lanes constitutes billions of dollars of U.S. government services. Friendly diplomatic relations must be maintained with major exporter countries, especially those with U.S.-owned holdings. Likewise, military force must be readily available to combat any attempt to seize or otherwise disrupt oil supplies by foreign aggressors. Besides maintaining existing American assets and relationships, the government has also engaged in policies in seeking out new sources of oil. One need only imagine a world that did not need petroleum, and aptly ask: “would our foreign policy be the same if that were the case?” It is misleading, of course, to characterize the government’s heavy interest in maintaining and expanding oil supplies as only a resource transfer to large oil companies, as much income in America is authentically dependent on the energy generated by oil. Nonetheless, it is still a subsidy that discourages substitutes and conservation.

It is no surprise that Republicans advocate the very symbolic policy goal of an aggressive outward foreign policy. According to the Center for Reponsive Politics, in the 2006 election cycle, Republicans received 84% of all campaign contributions from the oil industry. While oil interests may not be the sole explanation of their foreign policy goals, they stand as part of a wider variety of interests that share common goals, such as defense contractors. A glimpse at the news today reveals that the price of oil per gallon to the customer is as much a leading economic statistic as the stock indexes. The “price at the pump” has become a highly symbolic issue, and many Americans often complain that gas prices have been allowed to become too high and that something ought to be done about it. To some, this means moving to alternative fuel sources. To oil companies, it is an opportunity to continue arguing for the necessity of oil on the basis of economic growth, appealing to the average American’s lifestyle.

The issue of global climate change has particularly in the last decade led to political gamesmanship from major corporate interests in the oil industry. The Kyoto protocols, negotiated and signed by the Clinton administration in 1997, were drafted with the objective of “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”[9] This would entail the reduction of emissions, either via increased automobile efficiency among other conservation measures, or even possibly the development of permanent alternative fuel sources- a clear threat to the oil industry’s many sunken capital costs. Exxon-Mobil, the largest oil company in the world and contributor of the greatest amount of U.S. lobbying dollars in its industry, has undertaken a strong anti-global-warming campaign, funding private think-tanks to promote uncertainty over global warming and the economic danger of environmental regulations. Not surprisingly, their business model is suited primarily for research and development in oil extraction and refinement, and they hold several oil assets abroad, including major pipelines in Siberia and Africa.

Oil companies like Exxon-Mobil had quickly realized that they needed to win the war against the Kyoto protocols and all other climate control policies, and doing so would require the scientific agreement of the public, and in turn Congress. In 1998, the New York Times revealed a leaked American Petroleum Institute (an organization whose membership includes Exxon-Mobil) memo aimed at addressing the ubiquitous presence of global climate concerns. Its proposed organization, the Global Climate Science Data Center, would serve several useful functions, among them, “identifying and establishing cooperative relationships with all major scientists whose research in this field supports our position,” and “developing opportunities to maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours with Congress, the media and other key audiences.” It is quite clear that no matter where the evidence lies for global warming phenomena, money is pushed into politics in a manner concurrent with partisanship over science. [10]

In Opensecrets.org’s special election report, “President Bush’s First 100 Days: A Look at How the Special Interests Have Fared,” the section subtitled “Energy” begins bluntly: “If there were any doubt that President Bush and Vice President Cheney, two former oil executives, would be sympathetic to the interests of energy companies, it has been put to rest in the first 100 days of the new administration.”[11] Evidence of a “revolving door”-style administration is abundant with respect to the petroleum industry. In 2001, Exxon-Mobil lobbyist Randy Randol sent a memo to the White House requesting that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chairman Robert Watson resign. Though he did not resign, his reelection was blocked one year later.[12] In 2003, the Bush administration officially denounced the Kyoto protocols. Presently, the administration shows few signs of substantively addressing the global warming issue, and the “lame-duck” period will likely prolong that trend until 2009.

Conclusions

The omnipresence of private interests bearing significant influence on governmental policy is not unknown or surprising to most people. However, an understanding of the process of how these interests come to affect government policies is important for the MNC strategy theorist, for the foundations that underlie it must be considered as new developments in globalization world governance begin to surface. Greater empirical study of the effects of political dollars on profits can yield great insight into the causes MNC decision-making, along with possible reforms to counteract the exploitation of political systems for subsidies, but it is ultimately limited by the obscure nature of the interpersonal dealings and complexity of publicized procedures that constitute the lobbying-subsidy process. More exploration of the broad spectrum of powers such as multilateral institutions that can be tapped for MNC benefit can also explain how government intervention is still not out of the question in a rapidly globalizing economy.

[1] Lobbying Database, Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/index.asp (Accessed April 3, 2007)

[2] These large firms, because of their size, require bureaucracy-like institutions in order to effectively manage their vast resources.

[3] This is a quasi-political function of corporations that is captured exogenously in u_i in order to keep the lobbying-subsidy model simple.

[4] “Lobbying in the United States.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States

[5] Compiled from Opensecrets.org.

[6] “Pharmaceutical Industry Spent $800M on Lobbying Over 7 Years, Report States.” Medical News Today. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27125

[7] “The U.S. Congress Votes Database.” The Washington Post. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/109/house/1/votes/443/

[8] “CAFTA, Data Protection and Generic Drugs.” Embassy of the United States: Guatemala. http://guatemala.usembassy.gov/factsheetcaftagenerics.html

[9] The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/1353.php.

[10] Global Climate Science Communications: Action Plan. The American Petroleum Institute. http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/ew@shell/API-prop.html

[11]“President Bush’s First 100 Days: A Look at How the Special Interests Have Fared,” Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/bush/100days/energy.asp

[12] Mooney, Chris. “Some Like it Hot.” Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/some_like_it_hot.html

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Let’s take a look at some of the philosophy of anti-laissez-faire, particularly in its heyday: just before the first World War. There is little doubt the explosive growth of America’s economy was the result of the great human effort, the application of knowledge to production to create technology and capital, and the vast land and natural resources at its disposal. The framework of classical liberal (in full form, laissez-faire) economics pioneered by Great Britain gave great incentive for this process. A century of liberalism arose from thousands of years before of dysfunctional human civilization, growing the population and standard of living of human beings far larger than ever before in any century.

However, following the Civil War and the Second Industrial Revolution, class divisions had grown and fresh voices bemoaned the supposedly unjust distribution of wealth in society, calling into question the validity of the free market. Though lacking true ideological conformity, changes in attitude toward laissez-faire capitalism[1] since the Founding have been generally defined by any or all of three major shifts: most importantly, the replacement of liberal political rights with economic entitlements; closely connected, a new emphasis on collective instead of individual good; and in effect, the belief in the use of government as a valuable tool for bettering those collectives.

Of course, some important qualifications must be made. Firstly, not all objections made to the state of the nation under capitalism in the late 19^th– and early 20^th– centuries were necessarily at odds with traditional liberal principles. Truly consistent advocates of laissez-faire capitalism such as William Graham Sumner believed that government obstruction of trade unions and other forms of collective bargaining[2], for example, interfered with the individual’s right to freedom of association and self-determination. Broadly speaking, the political environment that permitted wealth to buy power in government was an essential threat to traditional liberty. Furthermore, it would be disingenuous to attempt to collectivize the entire spectrum of objections to liberal society, as they can be vastly different in their moral values, justifications for their principles, and the nature and practical execution of their policies.[3] Overall, the following breakdown is only a brief approximation of the characteristics of those opposed to laissez-faire economics, with a select few of several possible examples.

The Rise of “Economic Freedom” As a Standard of Living

The issues of most profound significance to any attitude toward economic and legal systems are the moral concepts that underlie them. Almost universally, opponents of capitalism believed that wrong-doing necessarily occurred from its implementation, whether in its means or in its ends. Previously, most of an individual’s rights in America were defined by a Lockean theory of natural law. Freedom of contract (and a right to a fulfillment of those contracts) permitted one the ability to freely associate with others economically. However, great disparities in wealth concentration led critics of capitalism to denounce the status quo, which was allegedly caused by the consistent legal enactment of these principles. Factions such as the Populist movement, the Progressive movement, and the Socialist Party of America formed in the antebellum period as a response.[4] The introduction of a new kind of right pervaded these new alternatives to laissez-faire capitalism: the economic freedom.

Karl Marx’s famous maxim, “from each according to his ability, and to each according to his need,” was one widely accepted economic substitute for property rights. Looking Backward (1888), a novel by Edward Bellamy, details a futuristic society that has supplanted competition with economic rights and duties in line with Marx’s axiom. “The reward of any service depended not upon its difficulty, danger or hardship, for throughout the world it seems that the most perilous, severe, and repulsive labor was done by the worst paid classes…,” states Dr. Leete, a knowledgeable member of the society.[5] Indeed, this was not the case in 1887; the natural system of economic rewards resulting from liberal rights is, first and foremost, based on the mutual exchange of desired values, i.e. supply and demand. “Wage slavery” became a popular phrase to describe status of the common laborer. In The Living Wage (1906), John A. Ryan argues that the “American standard of living” is a “natural and absolute right” of citizenship. Though he argued it as a dictum of Christian values, many other leftists embraced a similar belief, and an ends-oriented theory of economic freedom gained popularity. No longer would individual autonomy provided by rights determine one’s economic freedom, but the level of wages would.[6]

Collectivism vs. Individualism

Logically entailed by the change in moral principles was an insistence that the good of the collective trumps the good of the individual. Since the notion of the fairness of market-defined wages was fully rejected, the market was replaced by newly-found social and moral considerations. Henry Demarest Lloyd, one of the foremost antagonists of Social Darwinism, placed great emphasis on collective governance and production. “Our liberties and our wealth are from the people and by the people,” he contends, “and both must be for the people.” His use of “the people” is not merely political euphemism, but imperative: “wealth, like government, is the product of the co-operation of all, and, like government, must be the property of all its creators.”[7]

Historically, a principal element of collectivization derived from stressing the importance of labor, in contrast to the capital-focused Industrial Revolutions of the 1800s. In 1914, Congress announced via the Clayton Act, “The labor of a human being is not a commodity.”[8] There is no better example of American labor-class activism than the writings of Socialist Party figurehead Eugene V. Debs. In Revolutionary Unionism (1905), Debs argues for the unity of the working class and, in Marxist form, condemns the purported separation of the worker from the rightful fruits of his labor. He repudiates the validity and effectiveness of craft unions- usually selective organizations of skilled workers- underscoring that “infinitely greater than [their] loyalty to their craft is their loyalty to the working class as a whole.”[9] He fiercely criticizes the structure that denies the struggling laborer his desires, but fervently protects “the product of [the worker’s] labor, the property of the capitalist.” Then, when the dissatisfied become agitated and unrest begins, the government arrives to silence the menace: “If you… have made more steel than your master can sell, and you are locked out and get hungry, and the soldiers are called out, it is to protect the steel and shoot you who made the steel…”[10] Debs’ arguments reflected common sentiments of outrage toward a society in which a vast majority of people, though they were a necessary part of production, toiled heavily and possessed little while a tiny group reaped gigantic rewards.

A different form of collectivism, nationalism- in the spirit of the times- also was a popular source of ideological opposition to the free market. Similar opinions had already a large presence during the Founding in the form of the Federalist Party and Alexander Hamilton, who argued for state intervention as a means of furthering the nation’s economic goals. Bellamy’s Looking Backward, which cued a short-lived but large nationalist movement, extolled the replacement of self-interest with a higher cause: “Now that industry of whatever sort is no longer self service, but service of the nation, patriotism, passion for humanity, impel the worker as in your day they did the soldier,” says Dr. Leete. Another thinker, Herbert Croly, believed nationalism belonged hand-in-hand with democracy, stating “the first duty of a good democrat would be that of rendering to his country loyal patriotic service.”

The Role of the State in the Capitalist Economy

Government would be the primary tool in executing these policies, with force as the only way to guarantee Americans their social and economic rights. As German sociologist Max Weber explained, “The rise of modern freedom presupposed unique constellations which will never repeat themselves.” These “unique constellations” likely refer to the vast expanses of land and resources in North America, among other contingent facts, which gave rise to the harmony provided by decentralization. Otherwise, freedom must be centrally planned to be had beyond its occurrence through plain luck. Bellamy comments that Americans in the nineteenth century possessed a “galling personal dependence upon others as to the very means of life.”[11] The founder of the American Economic Association, leader of an organization created to battle laissez-faire economics, wrote “we regard the state as an educational and ethical agency whose positive assistance is one of the indispensable conditions of human progress.”[12]

Woodrow Wilson, in fulfillment of many of Herbert Croly’s ideas, advocated a “New Freedom.” In The Meaning of Democracy (1912), he claims that while laissez-faire Jeffersonian ideals furnished “a government of free citizens and of equal opportunity,” the contemporary physical characteristics of the nation were suited to it; families each lived in separate households, employers were closer to their employees, and so forth (arguments very much similar to Weber’s “unique constellations”). Using Glasgow as an example, Wilson draws a metaphorical parallel between the Scottish city’s common hallways in residential buildings being defined as public streets and the “corridors” of large corporations being regulated as part of the public domain. In this, he claims he is fighting against “monopolistic control,” and in turn “fighting for the liberty of every man in America, and fighting for the liberty of American industry.” [13]  Not coincidentally, the Wilson administration heralded the introduction of the discretionary federal income tax through the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913.

Is true capitalism dead?

Clearly, attitudes toward laissez-faire capitalism have turned significantly against it since the Founding. This is not to suggest that there was unanimity over the issue during America’s formative years, but major policy battles accompanied by successful movements have led to aggregate changes in economic viewpoints. The prominent influences of the postbellum period, such as the Progressives, have nearly eradicated belief in the functionality and morality of absolute laissez-faire­ governance. Likewise, the public institutions established in the wake of those movements have furthermore ingrained the permanent, expanded role of government in the national consciousness (euphemistically speaking). Even “right-wing” politicians who profess the values of capitalism take their cues from business interests in exchange for financial and political support. Few candidates can plausibly survive electorally on a genuine non-interventionist policy platform. For America, the unabridged free market is dead.

[1] To clarify, any mention of “capitalism” alone still is referring to unlimited, absolute laissez-faire capitalism with the proper host of necessary political rights. Likewise, “liberal” refers to the host of values associated with it.

[2] This is, obviously, supposing that these trade unions are behaving by legitimate and economic means. In the “Forgotten Man,” Sumner attacks unions which restrict the free flow of labor, by limiting the pool of tradesmen in order to artificially raise wages.

[3] Some thinkers were nationalistic, like Bellamy; others were religious, like Ryan; and so forth.

[4] For space considerations, this analysis will not go past the Wilson administration.

[5] Edward Bellamy. “Looking Backwards.” In American Political Thought, ed. Kenneth Dolbeare and Michael S. Cummings, 293 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004).

[6] Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom, 144 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004.)

[7] Henry Demarest Lloyd. “Revolution: The Evolution of Socialism.” In APT, 304-305.

[8] Foner, 144.

[9] Debs, “Revolutionary Unionism.” In APT, 359.

[10] Eugene V. Debs, “Revolutionary Unionism.” In APT, 355.

[11] Foner, 129.

[12] Foner, 130.

[13] Wilson, Woodrow. “The Meaning of Democracy.” In APT, 393-395.

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No one disputes the necessity of photographs and video in the apprehension and conviction of criminals, but the case of Williams v. City of Minneola highlights the potential for abuse by members of a government agency in the use of surveillance. Although the family was ultimately denied any recompense, the court determined that “…reckless infliction of emotional distress can lie for outrageous conduct involving pictures of a dead body.” (Mills 253). Mills points out the importance of this case because it grants a right to privacy for family members and allows them to bring a claim for reckless acts.

In our technological, modern era, the idea of privacy is so broad that to have a meaningful discussion of it, it first should be defined. Scolio, in his book Transforming Privacy: A Transpersonal Philosophy of Rights, divides privacy into four categories: physical, decisional, informational, and formational. Physical privacy indicates that one has control over one’s home as well as one’s body. Decisional privacy relates to personal control over one’s choices, and with the modern development of this category came the phrase “the right to privacy” which first appeared in the Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 (“Privacy, right of”). Informational privacy concerns the control of information about a person, including information kept in computer databases. Finally, formational privacy refers to the right of the mind “to be left alone” from the onslaught of media, advertising and mass culture. (Scolio 2.) The issue of privacy and government surveillance needs only concern itself with the physical and informational categories.

The history of privacy in America goes back to colonial times and the social conditions which led the authors of the Bill of Rights to include the Fourth Amendment. It reads “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.” (Taslitz, 6.) The searches of homes and seizures of papers and effects of persons were authorized primarily by the English authorities under laws such as The Stamp Act of 1765, which “levied a tax…on nearly every form of paper used in the colonies.” (Taslitz 24). Mobs of American colonists responded to the passage of the act with riots which eventually brought about a repeal. Taslitz suggests that while the riots were aimed at the tax itself, a large part of the anger was due to the history of the English authorities who would search people’s homes for smuggled goods, on which, of course, no tax had been paid.

Privacy in the digital age

Where the Fourth Amendment was concerned with the physical privacy of the home and personal effects of a person, the notion of informational privacy came about as a result of the technological advances which began in the Industrial Revolution and culminated in the invention of the computer. The development of photographic film by George Eastman and scientists at Kodak in 1888 made the previously cumbersome development of photographs available to the masses. The camera was now available for use in surveillance and the photograph as evidence in the courtroom. Once Alexander Bell’s telephone, invented in 1877, became the norm in every household and office, it was now possible for another person to surreptitiously eavesdrop on previously private communications.

The modern electronic computer began as an entirely mechanical machine that came into use in response to a particular problem of the U.S. Government in the 1890’s. Prior to that decade, the immense growth of industry and a rapidly changing population due to immigration made effective national government a challenge. (Agar 147.) The 1880 census had taken 7 years to tabulate by hand, and it was expected that the 1980 census would take even longer. In response to a competition announced by the census director, Herman Hollerith offered a machine that would sort and tally information stored as holes punched into cards. Finally, in 1971, Intel Corporation developed the microprocessor, an entire computer on one small integrated circuit or chip which made the personal computer and the Internet possible. Thanks to the ubiquitous use of computers in business and government, the police are now able to instantly track the use of a credit card, for example.

The issue of privacy and government surveillance is controversial and generates heated emotional debate because of the potential for great harm. Lack of security can result in injury, loss of property, and ultimately death. Intrusion of privacy can inflict emotional distress and destroy reputations, relationships and careers. The following four articles each highlight one aspect of the delicate balance between privacy and security and present an argument somewhere between granting government greater latitude in providing security or instituting tighter controls for protecting privacy.

Do we need a new privacy amendment?

The most neutral approach is presented in Orin S. Kerr’s “Do We Need A New Fourth Amendment?” This article was written as a response to Christopher Slobogin’s book Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment. Slobogin argues that two types of surveillance are currently unregulated by the Fourth Amendment: public, such as closed circuit television, and transactional, which he defines as access to bank, telephone and business records. Slobogin’s proposed changes to the amendment depend on the degree of the intrusiveness of the surveillance. Whenever current law does not address a particular situation, Slobogin believes that the courts should turn to public opinion surveys to determine how intrusive any surveillance would be. Kerr argues that making legal proceedings dependent on public opinion weakens the law and that “measuring intrusiveness does not actually measure how much a [surveillance] technique infringes on civil liberties” (Kerr 959). Ultimately, Kerr concludes that the Fourth Amendment as it exists is more than adequate to the task of protecting civil liberties.

Where the first article argues for the status quo from a legal perspective, the second argues for acceptance of government surveillance from a political point of view. What makes Cathy Young’s article “Liberty’s Paradoxes” especially interesting is that it admits a libertarian bias but argues the conservative viewpoint that government surveillance of private communication is necessary to protect citizens from the grave threat of terrorism. Young states unequivocally that she doesn’t “like the idea of government snooping on e-mail or keeping track of Web addresses…” However, she concludes that to address the potential for abuse of information, “…we need to recognize that…surveillance of private communication is indeed a legitimate government activity” (Young 3).

The last two articles in this casebook argue the opposite view: that government surveillance needs careful oversight and should be more restricted and controlled. “Group Privacy and Government Surveillance of Religious Services” by Travis Dumsday appeared in the philosophical journal Monist, so he approaches the issue from an ethical perspective. Like Young, he agrees that government surveillance is necessary from a standpoint of security, but he emphasizes the moral aspect of surveillance: it involves a violation (loss of privacy) and may include deception and breach of trust (in the case of a federal agent pretending to be a member of a group). Because of these violations, surveillance requires a “fairly strong justification” if it is to be done without acting unethically (Dumsday 182). This justification must be in the form of a specific indication that a crime is occurring, like a tip from a member of the community. Blanket surveillance without probable cause, Dumsday states emphatically, is morally wrong.

The final article “The Snitch In Your Pocket – Law Enforcement is Tracking American’s Cell Phones in Real Time Without a Warrant” by Michael Isikoff, unlike the other three, is a news article and presents its argument for legal control of government surveillance in a very personal manner. He begins personalizing the issue by pointing out that most of America’s 277 million cell phone users are unaware that phone companies can track them. Newer phones contain a GPS (global positioning device), while the phone call itself is routed through towers that can be used to pinpoint the origin of the call. To show the extent of the problem, Isikoff quotes Al Gidari, a telecommunication lawyer for several wireless phone companies who says that his clients receive “thousands of requests per month” for cell phone data. The article concludes with a dialog between Justice Department lawyer Mike Eckenweiler and appeals-court judge Dolores Sloviter. The judge pointed out that some governments, like Iran, would use cell-phone data to track political protesters.

“Now, can the government assure us,” she pressed Eckenweiler, “that Justice would never use the provisions in the communications law to collect cell-phone data for such a purpose in the United States?” […Eckenweiler] finally acknowledged, “Yes, your honor. It can be used constitutionally for that purpose.” (Isiskoff 2).

That brief moment in court neatly makes Isikoff’s argument for him. The potential for abuse of this type of surveillance is great.

Looking toward the future, the issue of privacy and government surveillance will continue to grow in importance. New technologies will continue to present us with newer challenges. The Department of Defense is working to develop a Total Information Awareness Program which would use new surveillance and analysis systems to protect citizens from terrorism. When this system is completed, it will provide a computerized record of a person’s entire life, including vital statistics, medical, financial, email, Internet, phone and travel records (Fischer and Green 14). The implications of such a database and the potentials for crime prevention as well as abuse are enormous. While the articles in this casebook present different arguments from a variety of viewpoints, they all agree one point: the need for judicial oversight is imperative for balancing the right to privacy and government surveillance.

Links to syllabi on this topic:

http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Faculty/Information_Privacy_Law_Syllabus_Fall_2007.pdf

http://www.privacyresolutions.com/jmls/syllabus2002.htm

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/privacy/

The post Tensions Between Privacy and Government Surveillance in the 21st Century appeared first on Rare Essays.

When it comes to the role of government (particularly its economic role), Republicans are supposedly the small government guys and Democrats the big government guys. In practice, we see that their voting records (or perhaps the size of government as a % of GDP under their watch) refute that. Though Republicans are outspoken against programs like socialized healthcare, they support increases in military spending, subsidies for corporations, etc. In other words, both parties are for big government: each just supports wealth redistribution for the benefit of different interest groups.

So what about the voters? We do live in what is supposedly a representative democracy, so assuming the system is “working” to any degree, the votes of the representatives should reflect in some manner the beliefs of the voters, right?

Here’s a little research I’ve recycled to explore that. The data is pulled from the 2004 National Election Survey. Here are two hypotheses, evaluated by the data, which are indicative of a general atmosphere of vague ideological definitions and, of course, fundamental similarities between both Democrats and Republicans in America.

Hypothesis 1: Voters registered as Republicans were more likely to consider themselves conservative, and voters registered as Democrats were more likely to consider themselves liberal on a Liberal/Conservative self-placement 7-point scale.

Though this seems like an intuitive hypothesis, it is important to test it and find some sort of relationship between party identities and some other, nonspecific scale. This is necessary to observe the relationships between party and particular issues that may act independently of the liberal/conservative placement. With a response of “4” being middle of the road, “1” being extremely liberal, and “7” being extremely conservative, 76% of registered Republicans chose “5” or higher, while 47.2% of registered Democrats chose “3” or lower. Given this information, the first conclusion to draw is that Republicans are more committed to conservatism than Democrats are to liberalism. Democrats had a higher percentage of “4” responses (35 to 19.4 percent for Republicans), and scores of “5” or higher than the Republicans had scores of “3” or lower. That is, 17.3% of Democrats were conservative as opposed to 4.6% of Republicans who were liberal. Independents were approximately evenly distributed, with 43.8% of its constituency at “middle-of-the-road.” The entire sample yielded 41.6% “5” or higher, 25.2% “3” or lower, and 33.2% “4” responses.

The implications of these numbers, of course, depends on the personal definitions (or feelings toward) the terms for each respondent. Generally, we can say that Americans in the aggregate consider themselves to be moderate, but leaning conservative. More investigation is needed, however, in order to glean the actual beliefs of each respondent.

The post Liberal and Conservative Voters in America on the Role of Government appeared first on Rare Essays.

When discussing the 1979-1983 U.S. actions in Grenada, one must ask the first and most important question: what interest could the world’s capitalist superpower possibly have in a tiny island less populous than a South American football stadium? The miniscule nation’s economy, lacking any significant natural resource or consumer markets (for example), naturally precluded almost any possibility of American business interest in Grenada that could capably provide a specific political-economic impetus for invasion. It likely follows, then, that the intervention was part of an arrangement of Cold War policy disassociated from narrow, influential business interests, and one more involved with broader ideological and strategic (Realist) theories. The new socialist government of 1979 had already not been in good standing with the Carter administration; the coming of Reagan in 1981 only deepened U.S. negativity toward Maurice Bishop and the New Jewel Movement (NJM), which had aligned with Cuba and the Soviet Union. Washington could, in turn, publicly allege that Grenada was a significant security threat if it were used militarily by the Cubans as a base for regional subversion, notably in Central America, or by the Soviets for projection of power, whether conventional or nuclear. In line with the U.S.’s hard-line economic stance on Cuban communism, policymakers also sought to isolate (and destroy) any non-capitalist system to prevent the creation of any precedent toward the success of such systems anywhere else in the region. Finally, as probably the most central motivation for the invasion of Grenada, Reagan, battling a proxy war in Nicaragua against the leftist Sandinistas, wanted to send a clear message to all countries in the region that the United States still had the power to intervene—with its own forces—anywhere it deemed necessary during the post-Vietnam era, and did not need to rely on proxy armies like the Contras. The causes for intervention, separate from the Reagan Administration’s stated rationale, can be principally divided into three parts: the long-term military security of the nation, in addition to rolling back the influence of the Soviet Union; the discouragement and destruction of any installation of a “socialist experiment” in such proximity to the United States; and the symbolic display of military power to intimidate regional opponents while restoring prestige to the nation’s armed forces.

Background and Outset of the Conflict

Grenada, a small island nation one hundred miles north of the coast of South America, is a heavily agriculture and tourism-dependent state with a population of under 100,000. Formerly a British colony, it gained its independence from Britain in 1974 under the leadership of Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy, one of the key players in fomenting change through trade union organizations in the previous decades. Though his popularity after independence successfully won his reelection to the premiership three times, he soon proved to be eccentric- obsessed with UFOs, extraterrestrial contact, and occult practice- and despotic, maintaining his rule through a secret police known as the “Mongoose Squad.”[1] Gairy’s opponents, the largest being the New JEWEL (Joint Endeavour for Welfare, Education and Liberation) Movement, a Marx-inspired socialist group led by attorney Maurice Bishop, began to take action. In a coup with little bloodshed, Bishop and the NJM seized the government while Gairy was in New York discussing UFOs in the United Nations. Following the NJM victory, the new government began to pursue aggressive and ambitious socialist programs that arguably turned the country toward progress, reducing unemployment from 49 to 14% and pulling up impressive growth rates in the midst of a world recession. The World Bank praised the new government in 1980, declaring, “government objectives are centered on the critical development issues and touch on the country’s most promising development areas.” The U.S. stance toward Bishop rapidly turned adversarial, however, and the Administration under Carter (and then Reagan) began taking measures to undermine Bishop’s government, particularly through subversion of the Grenadian economy. Travel-scare rumors were spread to American travel agencies while the White House painted the island as a communist enemy in order to discourage economically important tourism, and several international lending institutions were aggressively lobbied to halt loans to Grenada (to not much avail). Plans were also drafted by the CIA to “cause economic difficulties for Grenada in hopes of undermining the political control of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop,” but never came into fruition due to opposition from the Senate Intelligence Committee.[2] In the months leading up to the invasion, the Reagan Administration made a series of allegations against the Bishop government, centered about an image of a proximate hostile military threat that leveled accusations of military transfers to the island, such as a the construction of a Soviet submarine base and a shipment of a vast armada of aircraft. The most media attention was given to the construction of a new airfield under construction with the assistance of Cuba and Cuban workers, which was suspect to use for military purposes.[3] In March 1983, President Reagan announced on television:

Grenada doesn’t even have an air force. Who is it intended for?… the rapid build-up of Grenada’s military potential is unrelated to any conceivable threat… the Soviet-Cuban militarization of Grenada … can only be seen as a power projection into the region.[4]

All of these claims were at least in most part proven false. A Washington Post reporter visited the purported submarine construction site, finding nothing except the sea being too shallow for a sub-base; the massive Soviet arsenal of MIG fighters and attack helicopters was never found; and the clear economic motivations for the airfield were supplemented by a report by the British multinational corporation, Plessey, that enumerated a number of necessary military specifications not applied to the airfield’s construction.[5] With the specious groundwork of such claims, opportunity then struck for an invasion: on October 19, 1983, hard-liners in the NJM (later forming the Military Revolutionary Council) led a military coup and imprisoned Bishop and his ranking supporters. Capitalizing on the presence of 800 American medical students, Reagan began attempting to emphasize their imminent danger from the chaos and unrest of the coup as a pretext for an invasion, despite assurances from Cuban officials, the Grenadian military government, and the students themselves that no such threat existed. Though there were valid grounds to be skeptical of promises made by enemy powers, widespread refusal by medical school officials and students to acknowledge any significant danger trumped any realistic need for action for the sake of American safety. Why Washington would hold such an antagonistic and disruptive position would lie beyond the televised broadcasts.

Security concerns from the Soviet threat

Lies, falsehoods, and fabrications to drum up public approval notwithstanding, there were indeed several potential security concerns for the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere involving Grenada. After coming to power, Bishop, shunned by the U.S. and blocked from most Western aid, had no choice but to support his bankrupted treasury by appealing to the Soviet Union and Cuba for assistance. Unfortunate as these circumstances were for Grenada (either attracting more American enmity or letting the country’s economy suffer), associating with the Communist alliance would only invite influence and leverage from it. That the Reagan Administration concocted myths of vast Cuban and Soviet military aid to the island obviously did not change that such aid was possible and even desirable to the communists as a future opportunity. With strategic access to the Caribbean and Latin America, Grenada could serve as another Soviet power projection in the hemisphere and be used as a base of operations for South America. It had the potential to receive heavy aid and grow into a state similar to Cuba, it possibly becoming another flash-point for a confrontation similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961. Shortly after Bishop’s 1979 coup, the U.S. Ambassador delivered a note to address fears of a mercenary army (led by the exiled Gairy) counter-coup: “… it would not be in Grenada’s best interests to seek assistance from a country such as Cuba to forestall such an attack. We would view with displeasure any tendency on the part of Grenada to develop closer ties with Cuba.”[6] At the First International Conference in Solidarity with Grenada in November 1981, Bishop’s government outlined its plan for building a socialist Grenada while protecting it from “imperialism” abroad to delegates from “around the world”; that is, as they wanted it to seem. Though present were representatives from U.S., British, and other national political interest groups (communist parties, Grenada Friendship Societies, etc.), the majority of delegates sent by actual governments themselves were from such nations as Nicaragua, Libya, Vietnam, North Korea, and the USSR.[7] Over the course of the conference, the Grenadian ministers continuously expressed support for a vast list of distinct U.S. enemies, while emphasizing its positive relations with “the socialist community and other democratic and peace-loving states,” including those under the control of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.[8] Meanwhile, they lambasted American policy with harsh rhetoric, at one point labeling the Reagan Administration a “fascist clique.”[9] Considering these outward gestures, Bishop’s government appeared to be following a route of foreign policy similar to Cuba’s, attempting to ensure its survival by aligning with the “anti-U.S.” Soviet and miscellaneous powers. A viable purpose of the conference, then, was to visibly demonstrate to these powers that Grenada was ready for a serious commitment in return for economic and military assistance. Whether this predicament was caused unfairly or not, Bishop’s strategy would become grounds for U.S. concern. The 1983 MRC coup, however, drastically altered Grenada’s strength. After imprisoning and executing Bishop and his cabinet, General Hudson Austin, the military architect of the coup, realized that his new government had overstepped and become isolated, condemned by Cuba, sanctioned by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, and only supported with words from Moscow. In the language of British correspondent Hugh O’Shaughnessy,

There is every reason to think that in the case of Grenada the MRC would have collapsed under the great weight of the opprobrium it was suffering within the island, combined if there had been a need with the outside pressures exerted on it by its neighbors… had [Austin] and Coard not given up their narrowly dictatorial aspirations it is difficult to see what force they could have relied on to maintain them against the popular anger at the massacre they were responsible for.[10]

Indeed, though Austin desperately sought to negotiate his government out of its helpless position and the previously mentioned security concerns were all but dissipated for the time being, the U.S. immediately seized the opportunity to invade and claim a victory in the name of liberation.

The post The U.S. Invasion of Grenada: the American Government’s Justification and Narrative appeared first on Rare Essays.

Small Claims Court Procedures

The Coral Gables District Court (CGDC) – located at 3100 Ponce De Leon Boulevard in a relatively rich neighborhood- serves as a court for hearing small claims ($5,000 or less), county civil damages, landlord/tenant eviction, circuit civil, and family court cases for Miami-Dade County. The court only has two of its three presiding judges; the third is currently left to a cycle of temporary judges due to the elevation of two other judges to federal and state positions. I attended a small-claims pretrial session which scheduled several cases over a two-hour period. There were a whopping 96 cases on the docket to be heard by a temporary substitute for the missing judges. At 2:00, the clerk began a roll-call of the cases to be reviewed that session, announcing the parties in the case (Litigant vs. Defendant) and whether the defendant had been served the suit (“pending service”). If the defendant was not pending service and did not postpone the pretrial hearing, his absence resulted in a “default,” the plaintiff submitting a final judgment to be signed by the judge. After roll call, the bailiff summoned the judge to the courtroom, and the hearings began. As explained to me by a another bailiff, pre-trial sessions in the CGDC have a few time-saving functions: officially determining whether the case will go to trial, discussing accepted matters of fact, and even providing a time and place on record to pass on paperwork. If the parties had not worked out a settlement by the time of the pretrial, the judge would either refer both parties to mediation (or arbitration), or hear the nature of the case and determine if it was to move to trial.

Immediately noticeable in the process is the resolution of cases at the first step: the roll call. In the 96 cases called, over half of them resulted in defendant default. The impersonality of the suits (a company suing a consumer for “contract & indebtedness”) almost precludes any urge on part of the defense to even show up to court to face a well-equipped “repeat player,” particularly if there is no defense to give for unpaid debts. For most who default, showing up to court would mean missing a day of work just to receive the inevitable final judgment, the binding order to pay a debt (with interest if not paid immediately). The remainder that did not move on to the next step were defendants yet to be served the lawsuit.

In approximately one-fifth of the cases called, a defendant was present to proceed with the pretrial hearing. In only five of these, however, were words unrelated to the settlement paperwork being handed in exchanged between the judge and the relevant parties. In the others, the disputes had already been settled in private conference or mediation. As a local attorney explained, “on average only about 10%” of the cases that complete a pretrial hearing proceed to trial. To be more precise, only 1 of the 96 disputes ended in a scheduled trial. Clearly, the outcomes demonstrated the ability of the court to come to resolution of disputes effectively.

According to G. Alan Tarr, the purpose of a pretrial conference is for the judge and attorney to address the points of agreement and disputed issues. This, of course, assumes that the case will even need to see trial. Many judges encourage and aggressively pursue settlement to avoid trial by referring the involved parties to alternative dispute resolution (mediation, arbitration) and even function in a way as mediators themselves during pretrial.[1] All of these are common practice in the CGDC; the courthouse even provides its own in-staff mediator for an hourly fee. The low ratio of non-defaulted cases that went to trial can be attributed to this tendency.

Repeat Players and One Shotters

The majority of plaintiffs were the court’s RPs (“repeat players”): insurance companies, credit bureaus, banks, and other contract-related businesses, represented by a single attorney over several cases. Likewise, because the court only deals with claims up to $5,000, most of the defendants (that did not default) were OS (“one-shotters”) and self-represented. One significant plaintiff was Asset Acceptance, LLC, a company that “buys” debt from other repeat players, and hires or sends its own lawyers to sue in court for collection of these debts.

Legal scholar Marc Galanter (creator of the phrases “repeat player” and “one-shotter”) suggests that an RP will wield significantly large edges over an OS. “… Repeat players can structure the law at the outset… [They] usually have hired or retained lawyers, and so their start-up costs of litigating are minimal.” A credit card company, for example, will offer a consumer a contract and that contract is seldom renegotiated (or renegotiable), giving that company a distinct advantage over delinquent debtors. These types of clear legal obligations explain the large number of defendant resignation leading to defaults, both in the CGDC and nationally. The repeat players are also involved in litigation so often that they can dedicate resources to minimize the costs of taking small claims to court.[2] In recent years, debt-collection companies such as Asset Acceptance have begun to dominate the RP versus OS process, their revenue almost entirely generated by lawsuits. This requires them to maintain the capacity to litigate successfully at a low cost; in 2004, Asset’s expenses were 2 cents per dollar of debt collected.[3]

Because few of the cases required judge-party interaction beyond the transfer of paperwork, there was only minimal evidence to gauge the Judge’s courtroom behavior. To place her actions in context, due to the missing judge, the CDGC’s small-claims division was backlogged with work and was under pressure to finish its weekly caseload. In the single case that moved to trial, she grew impatient and brusque with the informally-dressed plaintiff while he was explaining the disputed issue at hand. As he approached the bench to show her a document, Schwartz immediately rebuffed him and told him to return to the podium, promptly informing him, “this is not a trial.” She inquired into the reasons as to why the plaintiff refused to accept a settlement, and he contended that the invoice of the charge he owed was filed to his name instead of his company’s name, a reason she likely perceived to be an inane distinction when she asked, “But do you have the money to pay him?” the plaintiff did not give a direct answer, insisting on his invoice claim and a movement to trial. Schwartz, not appearing very pleased with him, curtly replied, “This is too much for me to try today, so I’m not going to do it,” and told them to schedule a trial with her clerk. Clearly, the judge was actively participating by pursuing a settlement between the two parties by referring them to mediation, probing into the failure to settle, and even becoming agitated at his insistence on trial. Though this exchange appeared to be straight from “Judge Judy,” it did not mean that she failed to move through the few other cases quickly, professionally, and effectively without occasion. It is also notable that the court staff was very helpful in assisting my research, and, despite the work to be done, I was permitted to speak with the Judge in her chambers. Overall, the court was effective in its business but informal in its communication, as demonstrated by the interpersonal interaction in the courtroom between attorneys and staff, and the general willingness to help the petty research of an undergraduate student.

The post An Investigation of Small Claims Court Proceedings and Practices appeared first on Rare Essays.

After 23 years of France’s post-World War I mandate, the creation of the Lebanese National Pact, an unwritten agreement between the Sunni, Shi’ite, and Maronite leaders permitted Lebanon to achieve stable independence. The Maronites, largely modern and pro-Western, agreed to accept Lebanon as an “Arab” country and not seek foreign intervention, in turn making the Muslims abandon hopes of uniting with Syria. Also created by the pact was the Confessional System, holding that the President was always to be Maronite, the Prime Minister Sunni, the Speaker of the House Shi’a, and the ratio of Parliament members 6:5 in favor of Christians to Muslims. By 1958, however, growing Pan-Arabist sentiments spread by Egypt’s Nasser captured significant portions of Lebanon, leading to a small-scale civil war between the Pan-Arabist and the pro-Western Christians over three key issues: the dominant Maronite composition of government, the friendly relationship between Lebanon and the West, and Lebanon’s stance in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Maronite President Camille Chamoun, a staunch supporter of the Eisenhower doctrine, called on the major Western powers for help when Armed Forces commander Fu’ad Shihab refused to commit the Lebanese Army to end the civil war, fearing disintegration and mutiny. Five thousand U.S. Marines were sent ashore to find little fighting for them, and the crisis blew over. Shihab, arising as a prominent leader, succeeded Chamoun as President and introduced several reforms that assisted in the nation’s prosperity, but regional changes would soon shake the country once more. [1]

Following Jordan’s clash with Palestinian groups and the Black September incidents of 1970, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine sought a new base of operations. They began to set up “refugee camps” in Lebanon, a majority of which became well-armed fortresses containing thousands of members of the Fatah, the armed wing of the PLO. The PLO, led by Yasser Arafat, benefited from the now-deteriorating authority of the central government, seeking to administer a “state-within-a-state.” Given a safe haven by Lebanese Muslims and Druze in return for pressure on the Maronites, the Palestinians composed the largest private militia in the nation. At the time, the leading parties in Lebanon had formed into the Christian and Muslim “camps”: the Christians were primarily represented by the Phalange (Kataeb) and National Liberal (Ahrar) parties, led by Pierre Gemayel and Camille Chamoun, forming the Lebanese Front; the Muslims, including the Nasserites, Leftists, and Pan-Arabists, formed the National Movement, led by Kamal Jumblatt. Growing tensions exploded when in 1975, direct conflict began.[2] Two of Pierre Gemayel’s bodyguards were killed by unidentified gunmen, and Phalangist militia, in retaliation, attacked a Palestinian bus in the same neighborhood, killing 27. By 1976, the war had turned against the Maronites and was rapidly approaching defeat. Seeing this, President Suleiman Franjyeh called on Syria for help to end the war. Syria understood the implications of a Maronite defeat, which would entail a direct Israeli intervention and takeover of Lebanon to prevent it from falling under complete PLO control, and Syrian troops entered Lebanon in June 1976, occupying the port of Tripoli and the Bekaa Valley, under the Israeli-accepted Red Line Agreement, which prohibited Syrian troops from entering South Lebanon, placing Surface-to-air Missles in the occupied territories, and utilizing any of their air power against Christian forces. The Civil War had come to an “official” end, but the conflict was far from over. [3]Meanwhile, the Israelis provided arms and training to the Maronites, an effort that intensified with the election of the hard-line Menachem Begin in Israel. In 1978, eight Fatah militants launched a raid into Tel Aviv, killing 34 Israelis, prompting Israel to launch Operation Litani. Israeli forces attacked South Lebanon to destroy PLO infrastructure, but were soon ordered to leave by UN Resolution 425, which provided for the creation of a UN Peacekeeping force. Before withdrawing, Israel created a 10 sq. km buffer zone to be patrolled by Saad Haddad’s South Lebanese Army, in order for it to maintain its border security.[4]

Meanwhile, Christian resentment was high, with the knowledge that Syria’s leadership had never ideologically accepted Lebanon as an independent state, and that the Syrian forces would not be protectors, but occupiers. Retaking the offensive, Gemayel attempted to extend his authority into the Bekaa and stop Syria from re-installing Franjyeh as President by attacking the strategic city of Zahle, leading to a series of conflicts between Syrian forces and the Phalange militias. Syrian attack helicopters were ordered to attack Christian positions (in violation of the 1976 Red Line Agreement), and Gemayel called on Begin in Israel for help. Israeli fighter jets shot down two helicopters, leading to Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad to order SAMs placed around Zahle.[5]

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