Politics Featured Section “The Mine Provides The Coffin”: An Examination Into Human Rights Abuses During The Extraction of Critical Minerals Philip Maxson Free exercise and identity in conflict: The Future of Parental Free Exercise Claims in Public Education Max Choi Latest Uploads Evolution of Veto Powers as a Mechanism of Enforcement of Checks and Balances Spring 2025 Click Here All Lesbians go to Pride Fall 2023 Click Here Rethinking the Landscape of Guns in America Fall 2023 Click Here Schedule F And The Future Of Civil Service Protections Spring 2024 Click Here The Impact of Cross-Cutting Cleavage Structures on the Stability of Coalition Government: An Empirical Analysis of Parliamentary Systems Fall 2023 Click Here Vol. VIII | Issue I from dank to diplomacy: Memes in War and Destabilization Jasper Burnside Divergent colonial memories in south korea and taiwan: Institutional Legacies Danny Ly Vol. VII | Issue I The Burden of Innocence: Arendt’s Understanding of Totalitarianism through its Victims Elena Muglia Rewriting the Antitrust Setlist: Examining the Live Nation-Ticketmaster Lawsuit and its Implications for Modern Antitrust Law Katya Tolunsky The European Union trust fund for africa: Understanding the EU's Securitization of Development Aid and its Implications Migena Satyal A DEATH SENTENCE BEYOND DEATH ROW: Helling v. McKinney and the Constitutionality of Solitary Confinement Hallie Sternblitz Vol. VI | Issue II Schedule F And The Future Of Civil Service Protections Sasha Bonkowsky Does Social Media Strategy Help Politicians Stay in Power? Comparing the Cases of Modi and Bolsonaro Wendy Wang How Political Instability Unravels Religious Commitment in the Face of Uncertainty Navigating Uncertainty in Political Instability and Religiosity in Post-Arab Spring Egypt and Tunisia Abanti Ahmed Politics Archives Vol. IV | Issue II Refuting the myth of progressive secularism An Analysis of the Legal Frameworks Surrounding Religious Practice in France and Bahrain Bridget McDonald Ronald Reagan and the Role of Humor in American movement conservatism Abie Rohrig Vol. IV | Issue I Predictive Algorithms in the Criminal Justice System Evaluating the Racial Bias Objection Rebecca Berman From Bowers to Obergefell The US Supreme Court’s Erratic, Yet Correct, Jurisprudence on Gay Rights Sydney White The Unchurching of Black Lives Matter The Evolving Role of Faith in The Fight for Racial Justice Anna Savo-Matthews Vol. III | Issue II Rural Despair and decline How Trump Won Michigan in 2016 Bess Markel Vol. III | Issue I We The Prisoners Considering the Anti Drug Act of 1986, the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration in the United States Sophia Scaglion Vol. II | Issue II All Power to the Imagination Radical Student Groups and Coalition Building in France During May 1968 and the United States during the Vietnam War Calder McHugh The Life Cycle of the Responsibility to Protect The Ongoing Emergence of R2P as a Norm in the International Community Maxine Dehavenon PeaceFul Animals A Look into Black Pacifism and the Pedagogy of Civil Rights in American Public Education Jade Fabello Vol. II | Issue I Two Forms of Environmental-Political Imagination Germany, the United States, and the Clean Energy Transition Nathan S. Chael Oedipus and Ion as outsiders The Implications and Limitations of Genealogical Citizenship Claire Holland Partisan Gerrymandering Re-Establishing the Political Question Doctrine in Gill v. Whitford Connor Maag Vol. I | Issue II Transparency and compliance The Strength of EU Lobbying Regulations Abigail Borges Georgian-South Ossetian Conflict Is Secession a Viable Solution? Tathyana Mello Amaral Imagined Isle Irish Catholic Identity in the Restoration Era Nathan Mainster Vol. I | Issue I American Jews The Political Behavior of American Jews A Public Choice Approach to Israel-influenced Voting Jake Goodman Racial Capitalism Racial Capitalism in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Challenging the Fallacy of Black Entitlement under Service Delivery Protests. Olerato Mogomotsi A.S.e.a.n The Long Game: ASEAN, China’s Charm Offensive and the South China Sea Dispute Hisyam Takiudin

Economics Not paying income tax timely leads to significant financial losses for the governments. What design changes could be made to tax collection policy to minimize these delays? Aryan Midha One Planet, One Oklahoma: Exploring a Framework for Assessing the Feasibility of Localized Energy Transitions in the United States Anna Hyslop The Pay Gap Among Academic Faculty for Higher Education in the U.S. Yucheng Wang Economics Archives Vol. VI | Issue I Fiscal Pressures and Democratic Engagement: The Differential Impact of Public Debt on Voter Turnout Across Levels of Governance in the European Union NEW, Fall 2025 Click Here Varieties of Capitalism and Bank Bailout Designs: Differing Strategic Tilts Fall 2023 Click Here The rise and effects of non-standard labour contracts in the Netherlands: An economic and historical analysis from 1970 to 2019 Fall 2023 Click Here Female education and female labor force participation in Europe: the cause of lower fertility rates or the solution? Fall 2023 Click Here Vol. IV | Issue II Against the Mainstream How Modern Monetary Theory and the Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight Challenge Conventional Wisdom Justin Lee The relationship between education and welfare dependency Aiden Cliff Vol. IV | Issue II Against the Mainstream How Modern Monetary Theory and the Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight Challenge Conventional Wisdom Justin Lee The relationship between education and welfare dependency Aiden Cliff Vol. IV | Issue I The Black Bourgeoisie The Chief Propagators of “Buy Black” and Black Capitalism Noah Tesfaye God Save the Fish The Abyss of Electoral Politics in Trade Talks––a Brexit Case Study Eleanor Ruscitti Breaking Big Ag Examining the Non-Consolidation of China’s Farms Noah Cohen Vol. III | Issue II Federal 5g innovation policy Technological Competition between the US and China Will Matheson A "Shot" Heard around the WOrld The Fed made a deliberate choice to let Lehman fail Sydney Bowen UK Government Commitment to Sustainable Development Goals Good for the economy and business in general? Brooklyn Han, Patrick Leitloff, Sally Yang, Eddy Zou "Victorian Holocausts" The Long-Term Consequences of Famine in British India Adithya V. Raajkumar Vol. III | Issue I State-Owned Banks and the Promise of an Equitable Financial Sector Elias van Emmerick No Place like Home Extending the Equity Home Bias Theory to Foreign Portfolio Investment in Emerging Markets Qiyuan Zheng Vol. II | Issue II John Taylor and Ben Bernanke on the Great Recession Who Was Right About What Went Wrong? Mikael Hemlin Financial Literacy, Credit Access and Financial Stress of Micro-Firms Evidence from Chile Lucas Rosso Fones Vol. II | Issue I A Fair Free Lunch? Reconciling Freedom and Reciprocity in the Context of Universal Basic Income Olivia Martin Enhancing Value or Stifling Innovation Examining the Effects of Shareholder Activism and Its Impact on American Capitalism Andrew Kutscher and Doug Saper The Individual Unfreedom of the Proletarian Cal Fawell Vol. I | Issue II Public Funds, Private Interest The Role of Private Companies in Shaping US Cybersecurity Policy Justin Katz Vermont Act 46 Implications for School Choice Quinn Bornstein Vol. I | Issue I Cannabis Latent Effects of Cannabis Legalization: Racial Disproportionality and Disparity in Washington State Drug Convictions, 2000-2015 Kaid Ray-Tipton Energy Embracing Renewable Energy for Sustainable Job Growth in West Virginia Jingpeng Shao

Philosophy Body Ethics: Moving Beyond Valid Consent Christine Chen In The AugenBlick, Not the Moment A Heideggerian Critique of Temporal Inauthenticity Lukas Bacho Non-self through time Anita Kukeli Latest uploads Latest Uploads The Empathy of Otherness: Edith Stein’s Empathy and the Atypical Empathized Spring 2025 Click Here The Failure of Beauvoirian Punishment Spring 2025 Click Here A Defense of Externalist Reductive Representationalism Fall 2023 Click Here Simulated Ecosystems: A Consideration of How VR Simulated Environments Impact Human-Ecological Ethical Relating Spring 2025 Click Here Are Wage Offers Coercive? Fall 2023 Click Here FEATURED SECTION The Captain and the DoctoR On the Enchantment of Modern Men George LeMieux The Influencer Issue The Link Between Commodification and Well-Being on Social Media Enya Willems HOW ARE YOU THE SAME PERSON AS WHEN YOU WERE TEN Favoring the Brain Criterion View over Animalist and Neo-Lockean Views Henry Moon Divisive Identities Exploring the Interplay of Personal and Social Identities Ella Neeka Sawhney Philosophy Archives Vol. IV | Issue II From Sex to Science: The Challenges and Complexity of Consent The Challenges and Complexity of Consent Matthew Grady Shoring Against Our Ruin An Investigation of Profound Boredom in our Return to Normal Life Virginia Moscetti Unwitting Wrongdoing The Case of Moral Ignorance Madeline Monge Vol. IV | Issue I The Necessity of Perspective A Nietzschean Critique of Historical Materialism and Political Meta-Narratives Oliver Hicks The Growing Incoherence of our higher values Aash Mukerji Can Pascal Convert the Libertine? An Analysis of the Evaluative Commitment Entailed by Pascal’s Wager Neti Linzer Authenticating Authenticity Authenticity as Commitment, Temporally Extended Agency, and Practical Identity Kimberly Ramos Vol. III | Issue II KIERKEGAARD'S ADVICE ON THE UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH: The 'right' way is the pathless way Margherita Pescarin Teotl vs. tao Comparing Tlamatinime and Taoist Thought Richard Wu Punishment Human Nature, Order, and Power Ezekiel Vergara Happening on "polished Society" Towards a Theory of Progress and Corruption Alexa Stanger More than just a thought crime? A Retributivist View of Hate Crime Legislation Travis Harper Khadi Capitalism Gandhian Neoliberalism and the Making of Modern India Ria Modak Cause, causation, and multiplicity A Critique of E. H. Carr's "Causation in History" Kyu-hyun Jo Civil Disobedience and Desert theory of punishment Vance Kelley Tribes and tribulations Character as Property in Survivor Jasmine Bacchus Vol. III | Issue I A GRAVITY MODEL OF CIVIC DEVIANCE Justice, Natural Duties, and Reparative Responsibilities Woojin Lim CAN YOU RATIONALLY DISAGREE WITH A PREDICTION MODEL? Nick Whitaker The PANACEA PROBLEM Indifference, Servility, and Kantian Beneficence Benjamin Eneman Vol. II | Issue II Respect for the Smallest of Creatures An Analysis of Human Respect for and Protection of Insects Grace Engelman The Moral Futility of Contempt A Response to Macalester Bell’s Hard Feelings in the Era of Trump Jessica Li In Favor of Entrenchment Justifying Geoengineering Research in Democratic Systems Samantha M. Koreman Vol. II | Issue I Realism, Perspective, and the Act of Looking A Comparison of Chinese Cinematic Representations of the Second Sino-Japanese War Isaac Leong The Duty to use drones In Cases of National Self-Defense Lina Dayem Vol. I | Issue II Moral Manipulation A Kantian Take on Advertising and Campaigning Sylvia Gunn Health/Disease Distinction Normative Uses Margot S. Witte Statelessness A Contradiction in International Law with Asymmetrical Regional Solutions Samantha Altschuler Vol. I | Issue I Transcendental Self Reconceptualizing the Idea of the Self within Western Philosophy: The Existence-Reason Binary and the Nonrational Transcendental Self Jennifer Kim A More Perfect Union Inclusive Norms and the Future of Liberal Unity Benjamin Seymour

Evolution of Veto Powers as a Mechanism of Enforcement of Checks and Balances Politics Previous Next By Dmitrii Lebedev The veto has historically served as a crucial mechanism for enforcing checks and balances within governance structures, preventing the consolidation of power and ensuring deliberative decision-making. This paper traces the evolution of veto powers from their origins in the Roman Republic through medieval and early modern constitutional frameworks to their codification in the U.S. Constitution. Through a historical-institutionalist and comparative approach, this study examines how veto mechanisms have functioned as tools for institutional control, shaping the balance of power across different political systems. Special attention is given to the role of the veto in the American constitutional order, including its use in executive-legislative relations, congressional oversight, and judicial review. The paper also explores attempts to expand or limit veto powers, such as the legislative veto, impoundment, and the line-item veto, analyzing key Supreme Court rulings that have shaped their application. While often criticized for contributing to legislative gridlock, veto powers remain a vital safeguard against majoritarian excesses and unilateral governance. This study contributes to the broader understanding of the veto as a structural check on power, highlighting its continued relevance in contemporary political decision-making. Word count: 8,700 ________________ Introduction The legal mechanism of the veto has historically served as a crucial instrument for enforcing checks and balances within governance structures. By allowing one branch of government to reject or delay the decisions of another, the veto prevents the concentration of excessive power and ensures a more deliberative approach to lawmaking. Rooted in the Latin term veto, meaning “I forbid,” this mechanism has evolved across different constitutional frameworks, shaping the balance of power in diverse political systems. While typically associated with executive authority, veto powers have also been exercised by legislative and judicial bodies, reinforcing institutional control. This paper examines the evolution of veto powers, tracing their development from the Roman Republic to their role in medieval and early modern constitutional frameworks, culminating in their codification within the U.S. Constitution. Through comparative analysis, it explores how veto mechanisms have been institutionalized across governance structures, from monarchical assent in medieval England to the presidential veto in the United States. The central thesis of this paper is that the veto, while often seen as an obstacle to governance, has been essential for preserving institutional integrity by preventing majoritarian excesses and ensuring interbranch accountability. However, its effectiveness depends on its design, political context, and broader institutional constraints. By analyzing historical precedents and contemporary applications, this study provides insight into how veto powers function as a structural check on governance and continue to evolve in response to shifting political dynamics. The Roman Republic The concept of the veto has ancient roots, tracing back to the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic was an oligarchy, and the slogan of the republic often used on banners, coins and monuments was “SPQR”, an acronym for Senatus Populus Que Romanus (The Senate and the Roman people). The phrase clearly demonstrates the elitist nature of the government structure, where the populus and the ruling class were strictly divided. Initially, the Republican Constitution concentrated the political power in the hands of the political establishment, the patricians, leaving the plebs, the common people, with little power[1]. The two main political bodies–comita centuriata (century assembly) and the Roman Senate–largely represented the interests of the elites[2]. Although the comita centuriata was a legislative assembly where all citizens could participate, it was divided into centuries, class groups based on property. Each century had only one vote, no matter the number of citizens in it, which gave disproportionate influence to the economic elite. The Senate, on the other hand, consisted of magistrates and ex-magistrates, representing the interests of the political elite. The comita centuriata, dominated by the patriciate, was responsible for appointment of executive magistrates: consuls (temporary war leaders and chief executives), praetors (civil administrators and law enforcers) and censors (census, public documentation and taxation officials). The Roman Senate, consisting of current and former magistrates, issued instructions and de facto laws of the republic that the executive officials needed to obey. The comita tributa, a more egalitarian but less influential assembly, dominated by plebeians, formed based on geographic districts, could only elect quaestors (custodians or auditors) and curule aediles (economic and trade regulators). Thus, the initial constitutional structure of Rome fostered self-reproduction of the elites, when the economic, political and military establishment had almost monopolistic control over appointment of executive magistrates and the Senate, a permanent legislative body. The plebs could only exercise oversight functions with little influence on decision making. This legal disparity would lead to growing tensions between the ruling class and the plebs. Indeed, such deep social inequality resulted in the first secessio plebis in 494 BC, when plebeians, thinking themselves to be oppressed by debt and arbitrary treatment by the patriciate, seceded to the Sacred Mount, a hill northeast of Rome, in a mass exodus as a form of civil disobedience[3]. The fact that the city ceased to function properly, as working-class people left their jobs, and the concerns over a possibility of an attack by hostile neighbors forced the Senate to start negotiations with the representatives of the plebs. A compromise was reached, which included the creation of an office of a tribunus plebis, or people’s tribune, which functioned as a Roman version of an ombudsman and was tasked with defending the rights of plebs and preventing abuse of power by the patriciate. To be effective in this capacity the tribunes were given special rights. One of their key powers was the right to convene the Senate at any time (in latter stages of development of the republic this authority extended to provide them with legislative initiative, the ability to introduce legislation). Additionally, tribunes had the right to convene and preside over concilium plebis (Council of the Plebs, gathering of all plebs), which could pass plebiscita (in the early Republic laws concerning only the plebian class). Most importantly, tribunes held the ius intercessionis or the power to intercede on behalf of common citizens and veto any executive action (by the magistrates) or legislative and regulatory action (by the Senate). Disregarding the veto of a tribune was punishable by death, and tribunes could order such execution. Additionally, any plebeian was given a right to what we would now call habeas corpus, a right to petition the courts to release a person under unlawful arrest. In Roman law, the doctrine under which any citizen could “appeal” the decision of magistrates was called provocatio ad populum Evidently, the position of a tribune was a check on the patrician-dominated political bodies. The veto emerged as a mechanism to enforce checks and balances in the Roman constitutional system preventing the patriciate to overreach with their authorities and infringe on the interests of the plebeians. The system of government of the Roman Republic was arguably the first one that established a clear separation of powers between different branches of government. In the Athenian democracy, where the assembly of citizens, ecclesia, was the sole source of government—meaning that it had ultimate and unquestionable authority in all matters including legislating, judging and forming the executive branch[4]. In contrast, the Roman Republic sought to clearly separate branches of government both on the class basis (by creating different assemblies with differing functions and authorities) and on the institutional basis (by dividing the responsibilities between various executive officials). This division of powers would intentionally create power struggles among the branches of government, preventing each of the institutions from seizing full control. Unlike in the Athenian democracy, there wasn’t a single institution that could monopolize the control over the system. Veto powers were an essential element of this constitutional practice, as they were the key tool that the politically disadvantaged plebeians could use to prevent abuse of power by the patriciates. It’s important to note that this practice, although very important in the constitutional structure of Rome, did not concern a legislative process, as the Roman Senate over which the tribunes had jurisdiction wasn’t a legislative body, but rather an advisory board that issued interpretations of statutes and controlled the executive function beyond the scope of laws passed by the Assemblies. Medieval Legislatures and the Royal Assent The introduction of a veto as a formal element of the legislative process did not exist in the constitutional traditions of classical antiquity; it only began to emerge with the development of the first medieval legislatures. A key difference between the medieval legislatures and the legislatures of classical antiquity was its estate-representative nature. Unlike the former (Greek Council of Citizens, Roman Century Assembly, Tribal Assembly and Plebian Council), the English Parliament, or Estates-General, and the Imperial Diet in the Holy Roman Empire were estate representative legislatures. These bodies became representative for the first time: instead of forcing all citizens or nobility to be present, the medieval legislatures allowed for the selection of representatives from different estates or social classes to participate in the legislative process. This system of representation marked a significant shift from the direct democracy of classical antiquity to a more hierarchical but professional form of government that evolved into modern representative democracy. Another crucial aspect of medieval legislatures was their territorial orientation. The assemblies of the Ancient Rome and Greece were based on class and citizenship respectively, while the feudal system of Medieval Europe required representation of all feudal subjects of the monarch from castles and baronies (nobility), abbeys and church lands (clergy) and free cities (commoners). At the time, these legislatures weren’t as powerful as modern legislatures. Monarchs still mostly ruled by decree and used their parliaments to rubber stamp the decisions that were already made. Still, due to a great degree of decentralization and feudal autonomy, the vassals were often much more influential than the monarchs, forcing them to retract their decrees and decisions. In such circumstances the “dormant” institution of representative legislatures turned into real political actors, not just a platform of opinion sharing and advising. The veto powers of monarchs, known as royal assent, were unnecessary with parliamentary institutions that did not enjoy legislative initiative privileges, in other words, did not actively engage in lawmaking beyond approving legislation proposed by the crown. For instance, the French Estates General was considerably less powerful than the English Parliament, as no bill could originate from it[5]. The main function of Medieval Estates General was providing authorization for general taxation of feudal lands and cities. Thus, the king could summon the Estates General for the sole purpose of approving his levying of taxes and then dissolve it. However, the French Estates General was also a platform of opinion exchange between the monarch and his vassals, often resulting in compromise on the more controversial taxes. But the assembly did not possess a formal power to amend proposals of the crown[6]. In fact, a legislative function was unnecessary in the French format since France was a decentralized state (unlike England), which made it impossible for a king or the Estates General to establish laws for the entire country, since Medieval France lacked a centralized administrative and bureaucratic apparatus and judiciary that would be in charge of enforcing them. The King could exercise his legislative functions only in his domain, which mostly consisted of the Île-de-France region, while local barons and lords had almost complete autonomy and legal jurisdiction over their own realms, often issuing their own decrees that could contradict the “federal”, country-wide laws, but, unlike the crown, they did have means of enforcing them. In contrast, the English parliament slowly gained legislative initiative. Unlike in France, where the monarchy was powerless and needy in comparison to its vassal subjects, the Norman invasion of England effectively upended the previous Anglo-Saxon feudal system when noble families of the previous regime who held allegiances to the House of Wessex were stripped from their lands and their realms were redistributed to the Norman nobility that fought along William the Conqueror[7]. Thus, when the English monarchs were rebuilding the feudal system from the outset, rather than as a consequence of centuries of a “Brownian motion” of hereditary succession and feudal wars, it made it possible to establish a clear hierarchy of titles and create an explicit structure of enforcement of the country-wide laws. Obviously, such a centralized political system was more advantageous for the monarch than to feudal lords and especially barons (the lowest ranking in this hierarchy), which inspired a number of rebellions against the English monarchs. This conflict was settled through the famous Magna Carta that embodied a compromise between the king and his vassals: the vassals did not succeed in reducing the powers of the king to the French level but were guaranteed protection against tyranny of a monarch and could influence decision making by withholding consent for certain forms of taxation.[8] In other words, the system became more balanced: the “federal” authority was still able to pass laws and enforce them while the local vassals (the nobility, clergy and commoners) got a right to influence and limit it. Slowly, the function of authorization of taxation evolved to also include legislative business. The first such Act of Parliament is the so-called Statute of Merton that significantly amended the Common Law in areas of feudal jurisprudence, land ownership and law enforcement. The Act served as a precedent for future Parliaments to enact laws beyond just the rubber stamp of taxation. The Hundred Years’ War between England and France, a very costly enterprise, gave the parliament more leverage to demand concessions in return for more taxes[9]. In this way, the Parliament acquired the right to approve all taxes (the Magna Carta allowed unauthorized customary taxation) and gained the exclusive power to initiate legislation establishing new taxes in the House of Commons, rather than by the king, which was called the power of origination. Additionally, a new rule was established that no bill could become law without the agreement of the House of Commons, nor could the King or the House of Lords change the wording of any bills submitted by the House of Commons without its approval. By the beginning of King Henry VI’s rule, the parliament had almost fully monopolized legislative function, but it still couldn’t act independently from the King. To counteract the parliament’s authority, the monarchy introduced the practice of royal assent[10]. Royal assent is the formal approval by the monarch required for a bill to become law[11]. This practice ensured that the King maintained a final check on legislation passed by Parliament. Without royal assent, no bill could become law, effectively giving the monarch a veto power over parliamentary decisions[12]. Royal assent functions are very similar to that of a veto in the US context but have some very important distinctions. Firstly, the royal assent isn’t fully a part of the legislative process, as the act of withdrawal of royal assent is a final blockade of the bill, preventing it from passage. It cannot be revised or overturned by the parliament, making the leverage of monarchy greater in negotiations with the legislative branch. This mechanism allows the monarch to become a leading obstructionist, who could sabotage the parliament in passage of the most uncontroversial bill to intimidate it to pass the bills they don’t support. This became a common practice under King Charles I, which soon led to the English Civil War between the royalists and the parliament, resulting in an overthrow of monarchy and execution of the king. Secondly, the withholding of royal assent did not allow the parliament to amend or modify the parts of the bill that were the most controversial, forcing the legislators to start from scratch. Unlike in the modern American political system, the monarch can only approve or reject the entire bill without providing reasons or suggesting amendments. Over the years, as the British monarchy took on an increasingly ceremonial role, the Kings withheld royal assent less frequently. The last time royal assent was refused was on March 11, 1708, when Queen Anne vetoed the Scottish Militia Bill. No royal veto has taken place since then, making this practice a mere formality in our Age. The Veto Powers in American Colonies Despite being almost fully abandoned domestically, the British homeland government used royal assent as a form of control of the self-government of their American colonies. By the time the colonies in America became a vital component of international trade and their population exceeded 200,000 people, the conflict between the parliament and the monarchy in England came to an end with a resounding victory of the parliament. The social and political equilibrium was set on parliamentary supremacy over the monarch. Recognizing this principle, American colonists tried to expand their rights to be properly represented and exercise the right to self-government. The political order of colonies, however, was sharply different from that of England of the time. In the beginning the British crown tolerated a much greater degree of control over local affairs by the colonists. A direct rule on the continent would hardly be possible due to issues of communication and coordination. In Hobbesian terms, the British ‘Leviathan’, the sovereign power, was weakened by the geographical remoteness of the American colonies, as it had to depend on the colonists themselves to enforce royal laws and defend the territory. Thus, to match the level of responsibilities of the colonists, they should have also received the necessary powers and autonomy to effectively fulfill these expectations. The geographical distance across the Atlantic allowed the colonies to develop their own systems of local governance, often with a high degree of autonomy. While British politics were still dominated by aristocracy and gentry, the American colonies were far more egalitarian: the number of small landowners was much higher, the cost of land was significantly lower than in England, and, as all property holders could vote, the electoral system became more democratic[13]. The colonial assemblies played a crucial role in local governance. The lower houses of the legislature, dominated by the representatives of the people, held the purse strings, effectively forming the budget. These bodies had significant power over local affairs, including taxation and spending[14]. This practice of self-governance became deeply ingrained in colonial political culture, creating expectations of representation and consent of the governed that would later fuel revolutionary sentiments. The Mainland British government soon understood that unchecked democratic decision making had unwelcome consequences, such as encroaching on the prerogatives reserved to the British Government itself, especially in the matters of appointment of local officials. Therefore, since the establishment of the colonies, British policy had consistently maintained that no colony could govern itself completely. Starting from the Restoration in 1660, colonial laws were typically subject to veto by a royal governor and then to review and potential disallowance by a committee of the King’s Privy Council, with few exceptions. These two veto powers are distinctly different from one another both procedurally and legally. Colonial governors, appointed by the Crown, wielded considerable authority, including the power to veto legislation passed by colonial assemblies. This veto power was a critical tool for maintaining royal prerogative and ensuring that colonial laws aligned with imperial interests. Governors held the authority to block legislation before it became law, making the governor an actor in the legislative process. The nature of such a veto could be interpreted from different perspectives. On the one hand, the process was completely arbitrary, and a governor could use his veto powers to undermine the collective decision making of democratically elected representatives. On the other hand, this arbitrariness could also be beneficial to the colonists, as it would be easier to pressure one particular colonial official to achieve a desirable outcome. Knowing this, the Crown established a permanent body in charge of reviewing legislation passed by the colonial legislatures. Since 1695, this committee of the Privy Council in charge of colonial oversight was the Board of Trade and Plantations. This body had much greater veto powers, as the royal disallowance that they imposed on colonial legislation can be equated to a repeal of the statutory provisions[15]. Unlike the governor’s veto, the royal disallowance could be invoked after the bill became law and started functioning. Thus, these powers could be better characterized as that of judicial review. The main purpose of the Board and its primary criterion in the analysis of colonial legislation was minimizing the inconsistency between the English laws and the colonial laws. In sum, the Board was responsible for maintaining the constitutional structure of the empire, preventing the legislatures of the colonies to erode the laws passed by the British parliament. Unlike the governors, the Board was far more objective in its acts and deliberations, as it sought to invite both parties to appear before the Board and argue their case. The Board created the offices of permanent agents of colonies in London, who were lawyers tasked with representing the colonial legislatures in various government organizations and lobbying the Board to leave the colonial laws unchanged. Thus, the functions of the Board were much more similar to that of the contemporary Supreme Court of the United States. In the British common law, there is a principle of parliamentary supremacy, meaning that Courts cannot nullify or overturn the acts of parliament. So, after a colonial law was passed and signed by the governor, it had the same weight as an act of parliament, making courts unable to interfere even if the law contradicted the main principles of English Common Law jurisprudence and the Acts of the British Parliament. By creating the Board of Trade and Plantations, the Homeland Government and the parliament attempted to subordinate the colonial legislatures to the mainland, making their laws reversible and evading possible overreach of the colonists. It is noteworthy that this practice was not opposed by the colonists and was generally regarded as necessary and reasonable. The tensions between the British Homeland Government and the colonial legislatures escalated following the Seven Years’ War. As one of the first major conflicts with a significant theater of operations in the New World, Britain had to devise a logistical strategy to sustain the war effort from afar. Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder’s plan relied on colonial troops while funding the war with British tax revenue. This approach proved effective during the war but led to postwar grievances, as both sides felt they had sacrificed disproportionately to achieve victory[16]. The British upper class, already burdened by high taxes, viewed the colonists as undeserving beneficiaries of British funds, contributing little to the imperial treasury. Meanwhile, the colonists argued that their lower taxation was justified by their lack of representation in Parliament, which left them unable to influence how tax revenues were spent. Many saw the war as a foreign conflict unrelated to their direct interests and felt that British contributions had not sufficiently compensated for colonial losses. Further resentment grew when the British crown issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, prohibiting settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. This measure, intended to prevent conflicts between settlers, French colonists, and Indigenous tribes, frustrated colonists who had hoped to expand into newly acquired territories. To pay off post-war debts, the British government and Parliament, dominated by mainland nobles and gentry, decided to levy taxes on the colonies, arguing that they had not contributed their fair share. For the first time, Britain imposed taxes and regulations that not only increased financial burdens but also infringed on colonial autonomy. The Currency Act of 1764 forbade colonies from issuing their own money, a measure heavily supported by British merchants. Parliament then escalated its efforts by passing the Sugar Act of 1763 and the Stamp Act of 1765, which imposed direct taxes on the colonies and sparked widespread resistance. This taxation was constitutionally dubious, as the Magna Carta had established that no taxation could occur without parliamentary consent. However, because the colonies lacked representation in Parliament, they had no means to object to these financial impositions. Many colonists saw this as a violation of their traditional rights as Englishmen. As George Mason expressed (Mason, 1970), “We claim nothing but the liberty and privileges of Englishmen to the same degree, as if we had continued among our brethren in Great Britain.” As the tensions between colonies and the mainland government rose, the institutional structure of colonies underwent significant changes as well. Parliament established the Colonial Department among other parts of the Townshend Acts[17]. This institution was supposed to exist alongside the Board of Trade, but the latter very soon lost its powers, as it was officially subordinated to the aforementioned Department[18]. The Department was tasked with fair and impartial administration of laws and ensuring their uniformity throughout the lands of the crown but became a militant force for royal administration of the colonies and subjugation of seditious colonists. The Department very soon weaponized the Board to nullify, or prevent from taking effect before the review, any laws passed by colonial legislatures. The Crown started to use these powers far more arbitrarily, making itself the final actor in the legislative process. Even before the passage of the infamous Taxation Acts of the British parliament, the already existing checks on the colonial authorities by the British were accepted, as colonies were left to themselves, exercised their self-governance and the British parliament did not interfere with it. But from that moment on Britain not only started to block the colonial laws they considered dangerous but also started to legislate on their own, with no checks on such legislation from the colonies, this order amounted to a direct authoritarian rule with no rights to influence the decisions of the Parliament by electing their own representatives, and no opportunity to pass the laws of their own. These terms heavily violated the established social and political contract between the mainland and the colonies agreed to at the times they were established, which certainly unleashed a direct rebellion by the Americans. The Veto powers in the American States and the Federal Constitution The Revolution against British rule had a profound effect on the political and constitutional structure of each state. After many years of restriction on legislative self-governance by the Crown through royally appointed governors and the Board of Trade, many newly independent states in righteous indignation minimized the authority of executive officials generally and governors in particular. This reaction against strong executive power was reflected in the state constitutions drafted in the immediate aftermath of independence. Most states deliberately created weak gubernatorial offices with limited powers and short terms, while granting extensive authority to their legislatures[19]. For example, in Pennsylvania’s radical constitution of 1776, the office of governor was entirely eliminated, replaced by an Executive Council. Other states, while retaining the position of governor, severely curtailed the office’s powers. In many cases, governors were elected by the legislature rather than directly by the people, further reducing their independence and authority. The Continental Congress, and later the Congress of the Confederation, stood as the sole national political entity during the formative years of the United States. There was no executive office that was nearly as powerful, and the Committees of the Continental Congress were often tasked with executive business. However, the concept of an executive veto was not fully abandoned. The New York Constitution, for instance, established a Council of Revision, composed of the governor, the chancellor of the Court of Chancery, and the judges of the Supreme Court and possessed the power to “revise all bills about to be passed into law by the legislature” and to return them within 10 days to the house of origin for reconsideration. Due to the continuation of predominant use of the British Common Law system the concept of judicial review was not yet established, as it was only codified and institutionalized by Articles III and VI of the federal Constitution and Supreme Court decisions in the early republic. Before its ratification the parliamentary sovereignty was still the law of the land, and the Courts could not exercise their judicial review in the way they do today. To prevent passage of unconstitutional laws the Council of Revision would be able to review legislation before it takes effect. It is notable that in doing so it amalgamated the qualities of governor’s veto and the royal disallowance of the Board of Trade. The Council was a part of the legislative process, just like the royal governors were, but was also a collective body mainly tasked with upholding the constitutional structure of the state. The Constitution of Massachusetts, known as Mr. Adams’s Constitution, was ratified 4 years after Declaration of Independence and, considering the demotivating experience of other states that rushed to weaken their executive, established one of the strongest executive branches of the early American period. The governor could veto the laws passed by the state legislature that could only be overruled by the two-thirds majority in each House of the legislature. A key innovation of these two versions of the executive veto was its constraint. After many years of colonial rule when gubernatorial veto or disallowance by the Board of Trade were the final action that blocked any further consideration of the bill, often being used arbitrarily, the veto was now subjected to overrule by the legislative branch and became time limited, so that a governor or the Council of Revision couldn’t delay the passage of the bill, or ignore it to prevent being overturned by the legislature. After a failure of the Confederation, the Delegates from each state gathered for a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The concept of veto powers was heavily discussed and became part of many constitutional plans. The delegates, influenced by their experiences under British rule and the weaknesses of the Confederation, sought to create a government that balanced effective governance with the protection of individual liberties. The veto prerogative would become a central piece and instrument in structuring this new political and constitutional order. Even though the majority of delegates agreed that a “vigorous and energetic executive”[20] would require some form of revision and veto over bills passed by Congress, the founding fathers differed in what kind of veto should be established. As part of the Virginia Plan, James Madison proposed to create a national executive in the form of a committee selected by the legislature for one year, which somewhat resembled the Committee of the States that functioned while the Congress of Confederation was in recess[21]. The National Executive would not have veto powers on its own, instead the Council of Revision, composed of the executive and the “convenient number of federal judges, would be empowered with it. The Virginia Plan version of the veto powers was very similar to that of the New York Council of Revision. The proposal drew significant opposition: Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts argued that by participating in the legislative process, the judiciary became a political body, making appointments to Courts even more crucial, forcing political actors to fill the judicial positions with their loyalists[22]. In addition, he argued that judges should not participate in legislating as they would later interpret and apply this legislation, infringing on the separation of powers doctrine. As part of the same plan, Madison also proposed giving veto powers over state laws to Congress, imposing a check on the state governments’ irresponsibility, but this proposal was soon rejected due to the fear of much more powerful federal government and impracticality of Congressional review over all of the laws passed in 13 different states. The Convention settled on a presidential veto that can be overridden by Congress with two-thirds majority of each House. The final version of the veto power, as outlined in Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, grants the President the authority to return a bill to Congress with his objections if he does not approve it. This process is a “qualified negative,” as it allows the President to influence legislation without giving him absolute power to block it. The requirement for a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto ensures that there is substantial support for a bill before it can become law over the President’s objections. The final version of Section 7 also included a loophole that would allow a president in certain circumstances to conduct a final veto with no opportunity for Congress to overturn it, known as “pocket veto”[23]. A pocket veto is a legislative maneuver that allows the President to effectively veto a bill by taking no action on it when Congress is adjourned, thus preventing the bill from becoming law without the need for an explicit veto. Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution provides the President with ten days (excluding Sundays) to sign or veto a bill presented by Congress. If the President does not sign or veto the bill within this period, it automatically becomes law, provided Congress is in session. However, if Congress adjourns during this ten-day window, thereby preventing the return of the bill, the President can exercise a pocket veto by simply not signing the bill. The use of the pocket veto has been a subject of legal and constitutional debate, particularly regarding what constitutes an “adjournment” that prevents the return of a bill. The U.S. Supreme Court addressed this issue in the Pocket Veto Case (1929)[24], ruling that if Congress adjourns in a way that prevents the President from physically returning the vetoed bill, a pocket veto is valid. The Court clarified that the key factor is whether Congress remains in session and able to formally receive the vetoed bill, deliberate on it, and potentially override the veto. If Congress is not in session and thus unable to take further action, the bill effectively dies without the possibility of reconsideration. Congress did not want this loophole to allow the President to effectively block any legislation passed by Congress without even a possibility of override. Because of the use of pocket veto and temporary appointments, Congress found a way to avert it, by introducing pro forma sessions every three days, so that Congress is technically always in session and the president may not exercise the pocket veto[25]. The use of the presidential veto in the early years of the United States was relatively rare and restrained compared to modern times[26]. George Washington, the first president, set an important precedent by using the veto power sparingly. He issued only two vetoes during his entire presidency, with the first occurring on April 5, 1792. This conservative approach to the veto power was largely followed by subsequent early presidents. The power to veto legislation passed by Congress was considered the last resort to prevent unconstitutional laws. For instance, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson did not issue any vetoes during their terms. James Madison used the veto power seven times, including the first use of a pocket veto in 1812. James Monroe vetoed only one bill during his eight years in office. The nature of early vetoes is also noteworthy. While some were indeed based on constitutional objections, others, like Washington’s veto of a military reduction bill, were grounded in policy disagreements. This suggests that even in the early years, the veto was not strictly limited to constitutional issues. Instead, it was a common assumption that presidents should not devalue the meaning of veto and use it only in extreme cases in constitutional matters and severe policy disagreements. It could be used as a political tool too. A significant shift in the use of the veto power occurred during Andrew Jackson’s presidency (1829-1837). Jackson used the veto more frequently and expansively than his predecessors, most famously in his veto of the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1832. This marked a certain turning point in the evolution of the veto power, setting the stage for its more frequent use as a tool of policy making, political bargaining and inter-branch negotiation in later presidencies. Contemporary Use of Veto Powers It is important to note that both political branches of government tried to exercise veto powers beyond the scope of constitutional authorities delegated to them. Since the 1930s, when the executive branch was delegated, much greater authority following the introduction of various federal programs and regulatory agencies, Congress has often been prudent in giving such broad powers to another branch without any checks. To prevent possible executive overreach, Congress passed legislation that included provisions that would allow Congress to unilaterally nullify specific executive actions without passing new legislation, known as legislative veto, thereby providing a check on the executive’s implementation of laws. For example, it was used in the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, a landmark legislation that allowed the executive branch to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed “vital to the defense of the United States” amidst World War II. The Act contained the following provision[27]: “After June 30, 1943, or after the passage of a concurrent resolution by the two Houses before June 30, 1943, which declares that the powers conferred by or pursuant to subsection (a) are no longer necessary to promote the defense of the United States, neither the President nor the head of any department or agency shall exercise any of the powers conferred by or pursuant to subsection (a) except that until July 1, 1946, any of such powers may be exercised to the extent necessary to carry out a contract or agreement with such a foreign government made before July 1, 1943, or before the passage of such concurrent resolution, whichever is the earlier.” Unlike a joint resolution that has to be signed by the president, concurrent resolutions only require approval of both Houses of Congress, drawing the president out of the legislative process. It gave the legislative branch significantly more leverage to pressure the executive branch and make sure that the laws are followed in accordance with legislators’ vision, as, unlike regular bills and joint resolutions, they could be passed by simple majorities in both Houses without the necessary presidential approval, de facto circumventing presidential veto powers given to him by the presentment clause. More broadly, in domestic policy, the legislative veto was employed to oversee administrative regulations. Congress could nullify specific regulations issued by executive agencies, ensuring that these regulations aligned with legislative priorities and did not overstep the authority granted by Congress. The widespread use of the legislative veto raised significant constitutional questions, particularly regarding the separation of powers and the principles of bicameralism and presentment. The ability of Congress to unilaterally block the actions of the executive branch gave the legislature an authority much beyond the legislative functions. Congress could not only block the president from participating in the legislative process as prescribed by the Constitution, but also to interfere into core functions of the executive branch by nullifying their actions without the consent of the president. If allowed, such a legal mechanism would provide fruitful ground for ad hoc legislation or for constitutionally vague statutes. Knowing that Congress can unilaterally cancel the executive action if it doesn’t like the way the legislation is applied, legislators won’t focus as much on writing strict and stringent laws knowing that they could later control their implementation through the veto. This practice could lead to a decline in the quality and specificity of legislation and infringe on the authority of the executive branch for an obvious reason and the judicial branch, as it would be even harder for them to apply such broad and vague laws. These issues came to a head in the landmark Supreme Court case INS v. Chadha (1983)[28]. The case involved a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allowed either house of Congress to veto a decision by the Attorney General to suspend the deportation of an alien. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court declared the legislative veto unconstitutional. The Court held that the legislative veto violated the constitutional requirements of bicameralism and presentment, as outlined in Article I, Section 7. The Court reasoned that any legislative action altering the legal rights, duties, and relations of persons outside the legislative branch must be passed by both houses of Congress and presented to the President for approval or veto. The decision in Chadha effectively invalidated nearly 200 statutory provisions that included legislative veto mechanisms. However, despite an unfavorable Supreme Court decision, Congress has sought alternative methods to maintain oversight and control over executive actions. One of the easiest and most broadly used tools is the “report and wait” provision, which requires executive agencies, or Courts to submit proposed regulations to Congress before they take effect, giving Congress the opportunity to pass new legislation to block or modify the regulations if necessary. In that time frame, before the rule took effect, Congress can draft a joint resolution, which if enacted by both Houses in the identical form and signed by the president, or in case of such veto being overridden blocks the implementation of the rule. An example of such provision is § 2074 of the Judicial Improvements and Access to Justice Act[29], which states: “The Supreme Court shall transmit to the Congress not later than May 1 of the year in which a rule prescribed under section 2072 is to become effective a copy of the proposed rule. Such rule shall take effect no earlier than December 1 of the year in which such rule is so transmitted unless otherwise provided by law”. This legislative tool allows Congress to be able to control the actions of other branches of government without violating the constitutional separation of powers doctrine. Another method used by Congress to control the regulations and actions of the executive branch is through the use of e so-called sunset provisions. Sunset provisions are clauses embedded in legislation that cause a law or agency to expire automatically on a specific date unless renewed by legislative action. Sunset provisions require Congress to periodically review and evaluate the effectiveness of laws and agencies, ensuring that outdated or ineffective policies do not continue indefinitely without withstanding the test of congressional scrutiny. It also allows Congress to refuse to reauthorize the provisions of the original bill that it found unnecessary or poorly executed. By setting expiration dates, Congress maintains leverage over executive agencies. The threat of non-renewal can motivate agencies to be more responsive to congressional oversight and concerns. Such regular review cycles equally allow Congress to revisit legislation passed before to adapt to changing circumstances without constant ad hoc resolutions. It’s also more practical from the political perspective as every bill that became law is a result of a political bargain that typically involves both parties and unilateral revision of or amendments to some of the provisions may uncover long healed political debates. The reauthorization process, on the other hand, is more flexible and allows legislators to renew the legislation by revisiting the piece of legislation as a whole. For example, the USA Patriot Act of 2001 contained the following sunset provision[30]: “(a) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in subsection (b), this title and the amendments made by this title (other than sections 203(a), 203(c), 205, 208, 210, 211, 213, 216, 219, 221, and 222, and the amendments made by those sections) shall cease to have effect on December 31, 2005. (b) EXCEPTION.—With respect to any particular foreign intelligence investigation that began before the date on which the provisions referred to in subsection (a) cease to have effect, or with respect to any particular offense or potential offense that began or occurred before the date on which such provisions cease to have effect, such provisions shall continue in effect.” From time to time the people found the legislatures to be unproductive or overly productive, passing legislation that either stalled necessary reforms or inundated the system with excessive regulations and spending measures. This is a natural consequence of the democratic system in which every Representative or Senator is interested in bringing funds to their state or district, creating jobs in the area they represent, and advancing the priorities of people in their respective constituencies, which often results in pork barrel spending – in other words, unnecessary funding which is passed for the purpose of pleasing constituents. This perception of inefficacy and fiscal irresponsibility has led to the rise of skepticism about congressional spending. Many critics of Congressional budget creation turned to the executive branch, and to the presidency in particular, to mitigate the Congressional overspending. Initially, in the early years of the Republic, Congress allowed the executive branch to manage funds appropriated by Congress more freely. Due to inefficiency in technology and generality of appropriation bills, the Executive Branch was given wide discretion on how exactly to spend the money. The President held the power of Impoundment, which allowed the President to withhold or delay the expenditure of Congressionally approved funds[31]. At that time, impoundment was used sparingly and was generally accepted as part of the president’s discretion in managing the execution of laws and the federal budget. Presidents occasionally withheld funds to ensure efficient use of resources or to address changing priorities. The practice was not highly controversial and was seen as a practical tool for the executive branch to manage fiscal policy effectively. Impoundment gained more prominence during the mid-20th century as the federal government expanded and budgetary issues became more important. Presidents started to use impoundment more frequently to control spending and influence policy directions. In particular, President Richard Nixon frequently used it to block spending on programs he opposed, which obviously antagonized Congress that considered it an overreach of the presidential authority[32]. In response to this tension, Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which significantly restricted the president’s ability to impound funds by requiring congressional approval for any rescissions (permanent cancellation of appropriated funds) and establishing a more structured budget process. After the president was stripped of the power to withhold funds and prevent excessive spending, the line-item veto emerged as a proposed solution to address the concerns of Congressional fiscal irresponsibility. Many opponents of congressional overspending have advocated for it as a measure that can limit government spending and reduce what they considered fiscal waste. The line-item veto is a power that allows the president, or other executive authorities, to veto specific provisions or items within a bill, particularly budget appropriations, without vetoing the entire legislative package. Many presidents understandably supported this idea, as it would allow the president to play a much greater role in Congressional Appropriations and the legislative process as a whole. This proposal would make the president a party in the legislative process to the extent that he had never been before. In 1996, Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act[33], introduced by Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, which granted the President the authority to cancel specific spending items and targeted tax benefits within five days of signing a bill into law. The Act was designed to give the President the power to rescind specific items of discretionary budget authority and targeted tax benefits within appropriations bills, without vetoing the entire legislative package. Under the Act, the President could exercise the line-item veto by sending a special message to Congress within five days (excluding Sundays) of signing a bill into law. This message would specify the items being rescinded and the reasons for their rescission. Congress could then override the President's rescissions by passing a disapproval bill within 30 days. If Congress did not act, the rescissions would take effect. The legal mechanism used in the Line Item Veto Act to prevent a direct violation of the Presentment Clause of Article 1 was to give the president the power to cancel budget items that were parts of an already signed law. This piece of legislation was quite remarkable as a Republican-controlled Congress gave a Democratic President Bill Clinton more discretionary authority to participate in the legislative process and de facto unilaterally amend laws passed by the legislators. The constitutionality of the Line Item Veto Act was challenged almost immediately after its enactment. In the case Clinton v. City of New York (1998)[34], the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that the Line Item Veto Act was unconstitutional. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, held that the Act violated the Presentment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Presentment Clause (Article I, Section 7) outlines the process by which a bill becomes law, requiring that any bill passed by both houses of Congress be presented to the President for approval or veto in its entirety. Any action by the President other than signing or vetoing the legislation as a whole would give the president an opportunity to amend the law and give effect to the provisions he approves of and make it much harder for Congress to pass the parts he may not like. The Court found that the line-item veto allowed the President to unilaterally amend or repeal parts of duly enacted statutes, effectively giving the executive branch legislative powers that the Constitution did not grant. In addition, the Line Item Veto raised concerns on the so-called non-delegation doctrine, a principle of constitutional law which holds that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to other branches of government or entities without providing clear guidelines. The Line Item Veto Act of 1996 challenged this doctrine by granting the President the authority to cancel specific items in spending and tax bills amounting to passage of amendments, without vetoing the entire legislation. This power potentially violated the separation of powers principle and blurred the lines between legislative and executive functions. If settled into law, this precedent of line item veto usage could potentially allow Congress to delegate the amendatory powers further to heads of executive agencies or perhaps even other non-governmental actors. While the Supreme Court held that the use of line-item veto violated the federal Constitution, the States were free to use that tool to reduce spending and over the years developed experience that allows us to assess the advantages and disadvantages of such a mechanism. A study published in Public Administration Review[35] found that the line-item veto is often used as an instrument for inter-branch partisan politics rather than purely for fiscal restraint. Another analysis in the Journal of Economic Perspectives[36] concluded that the line-item veto’s impact on limiting special-interest legislation and reducing overall spending has been less significant than proponents initially argued. Indeed, it is quite doubtful that a governor, who often needs the support of the same constituencies, would be a reliable ‘deficit hawk.’ The infrequent use of line-item veto challenges the assumption that the line-item veto is a consistently effective means of controlling expenditures. Furthermore, a study in the Journal of Political Economy[37] found that the presence of a line-item veto does not consistently lead to lower state government expenditures. Conclusion The evolution of veto powers as a mechanism for enforcing checks and balances reflects their enduring role in maintaining institutional stability across different political systems. From the Roman Republic to the modern U.S. Constitution, veto mechanisms have consistently functioned as a safeguard against the concentration of power, ensuring that governance remains a negotiated process rather than an unchecked exercise of authority. While often criticized for causing legislative delays or political gridlock, the veto was historically designed to prevent the dominance of any single governing body and to encourage deliberation, compromise, and accountability. Despite concerns about inefficiency, the constraints imposed by veto powers are not flaws but intentional features of representative government. The American constitutional framework, in particular, embraces these constraints as a means of preventing majoritarian excesses and fostering institutional cooperation. While the necessity of broad consensus can slow decision-making, it ultimately strengthens the legitimacy and durability of laws by ensuring they reflect a balance of competing interests. As modern governance continues to evolve, so too will the role of veto powers in shaping political decision-making. Whether in executive, legislative, or judicial contexts, their function as a structural check remains vital in protecting against overreach and maintaining the integrity of democratic institutions. In this light, the veto is not merely a tool of obstruction but a fundamental mechanism that upholds the principles of accountable and balanced governance. Works Cited 1. Abney, Glen, and Thomas P. Lauth. “The Line-Item Veto in the States: An Instrument for Fiscal Restraint or an Instrument for Partisanship?” Public Administration Review 45, no. 3 (1985): 372–77. https://doi.org/10.2307/3109963. 2. Alm, James, and Marvin Evers. “The Item Veto and State Government Expenditures.” Public Choice 68, no. 1/3 (1991): 1–15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30025364. 3. “ArtII.S3.3.7 Impounding Appropriated Funds.” Congress.gov. Accessed July 13, 2024. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-3-7/ALDE_00013376/. 4. “A Founding Father in Dissent.” National Archives. 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Bradford. “Twisting the President’s Arm: The Impoundment Control Act as a Tool for Enforcing the Principle of Appropriation Expenditure.” The Yale Law Journal 100, no. 1 (1990): 209–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/796769. 21. Moe, Ronald C. “The Founders and Their Experience with the Executive Veto.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1987): 413–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40574460. 22. National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning. Oyez. Accessed July 13, 2024. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/12-1281. 23. “Pocket Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655 (1929).” 24. Puryear, Cynthia L. “The Effects of the Norman Conquest on Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy.” Honors Theses 711 (1976). https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/71. 25. “S.4 - Line Item Veto Act.” 104th Cong., 2nd sess. April 9, 1996. https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/senate-bill/4. 26. Sayles, G. O. The King’s Parliament of England. 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Yakobson, Alexander. “Traditional Political Culture and the People’s Role in the Roman Republic.” Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte 59, no. 3 (2010): 282–302. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25758311. 33. “1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/States-General.” Wikisource. Last modified April 28, 2019. Accessed July 8, 2024. https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/States-General&oldid=9223354. 34. Hamilton, Alexander. Federalist No. 70. In The Federalist Papers, edited by Clinton Rossiter, 471–480. New York: Signet Classics, 2003. ________________ In-Text Citations [1] Yakobson, Alexander. “Traditional Political Culture and the People’s Role in the Roman Republic.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 59, no. 3 (2010): 282–302. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25758311. [2] Millar, Fergus. “The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C.” The Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/299003. [3] Livy. Books I and II with an English Translation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1919. (Chapters 32–33). [4] Cary, M. “Athenian Democracy.” History 12, no. 47 (1927): 206–214. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24400152. [5] Genet, Jean-Philippe. “The Government of Later Medieval France and England: A Plea for Comparative History.” In Government and Political Life in England and France, c.1300–c.1500, edited by Christopher Fletcher, Jean-Philippe Genet, and John Watts, 1–23. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. [6] “1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/States-General.” Last modified April 28, 2019. Wikisource. Retrieved July 8, 2024. https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/States-General&oldid=9223354. [7] Puryear, Cynthia L. "The Effects of the Norman Conquest on Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy." Honors Thesis 711, University of Richmond, 1976. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/71. [8] Primarily because the English feudal system embraced the principle of “divide and conquer” creating a ton of smaller counties, while France had a small number of very powerful dukes. [9] Harriss, G. L. “War and the Emergence of the English Parliament, 1297–1360.” Journal of Medieval History 2, no. 1 (1976): 35–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-4181(76)90012-9. [10] Sayles, G. O. The King's Parliament of England. London: Edward Arnold, 1974. (Pages 116–117). https://archive.org/details/kingsparliamento0000sayl/page/116. [11] UK Parliament. "Passage of a Bill: Royal Assent." Accessed July 9, 2024. https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/passage-bill/commons/coms-royal-assent/. [12] Torrance, David. Royal Assent. House of Commons Library, 2024. Accessed July 9, 2024. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9466/CBP-9466.pdf. [13] Dinkin, Robert J. Voting in Provincial America: A Study of Elections in the Thirteen Colonies, 1689–1776. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1977. [14] Moe, Ronald C. “The Founders and Their Experience with the Executive Veto.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1987): 413–432. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40574460. [15] Moe, Ronald C. "The Founders and Their Experience with the Executive Veto." Presidential Studies Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1987): 413–432. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40574460. [16] Taylor, Alan. American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804. New York: W. W. Norton, 2016. [17] Foulds, Nancy. “Colonial Office.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2015. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/colonial-office. [18]Moe, Ronald C. “The Founders and Their Experience with the Executive Veto.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1987): 413–432. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40574460., [19]Moe, Ronald C. “The Founders and Their Experience with the Executive Veto.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1987): 413–432. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40574460. [20] Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 70, in The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York: Signet Classics, 2003), 471–480. [21] U.S. Senate. “The Virginia Plan.” Last modified August 15, 2022. https://www.senate.gov/civics/common/generic/Virginia_Plan_item.htm. [22] National Archives. “A Founding Father in Dissent.” Last modified February 2, 2023. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/spring/gerry.html. [23] Kennedy, Edward M. “Congress, the President, and the Pocket Veto.” Virginia Law Review 63, no. 3 (1977): 355–382. https://doi.org/10.2307/1072355. [24] Pocket Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655 (1929). [25] National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, 573 U.S. 513 (2014). Oyez. Accessed July 13, 2024. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/12-1281. [26] Watson, Richard A. “Origins and Early Development of the Veto Power.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1987): 401–412. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40574459. [27] “National Archives. "Lend-Lease Act (1941).” Last modified June 28, 2022. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/lend-lease-act#:~:text=Passed%20on%20March%2011%2C%201941,defense%20of%20the%20United%20States.%22. [28] INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983). Oyez. Accessed July 13, 2024. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1981/80-1832. [29] H.R.4807, 100th Cong. (1987–1988). Judicial Improvements and Access to Justice Act. Enacted November 19, 1988. https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/4807. [30] H.R.3162, 107th Cong. (2001–2002). Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001. Enacted October 26, 2001. https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/3162. [31] Middlekauff, Wm. Bradford. “Twisting the President’s Arm: The Impoundment Control Act as a Tool for Enforcing the Principle of Appropriation Expenditure.” The Yale Law Journal 100, no. 1 (1990): 209–228. https://doi.org/10.2307/796769. [32] Congress.gov. "ArtII.S3.3.7 Impounding Appropriated Funds." Accessed July 13, 2024. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-3-7/ALDE_00013376/. [33] S.4, 104th Cong. (1995–1996). Line Item Veto Act. Enacted April 9, 1996. https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/senate-bill/4. [34] Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998). Oyez. Accessed July 13, 2024. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1997/97-1374. [35] Abney, Glenn, and Thomas P. Lauth. “The Line-Item Veto in the States: An Instrument for Fiscal Restraint or an Instrument for Partisanship?” Public Administration Review 45, no. 3 (1985): 372–377. https://doi.org/10.2307/3109963. [36] Carter, John R., and David Schap. “Line-Item Veto: Where Is Thy Sting?” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 4, no. 2 (1990): 103–118. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1942893. [37] Alm, James, and Marco Evers. “The Item Veto and State Government Expenditures.” Public Choice 68, no. 1/3 (1991): 1–15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30025364.

Simulated Ecosystems: A Consideration of How VR Simulated Environments Impact Human-Ecological Ethical Relating Philosophy Previous Next BY Laura Anne Clark Abstract: Recent scholars have challenged a long-held system of valuation of the environment as either intrinsic or instrumental, introducing a new way of understanding the value of the environment: relational. In this paper, I adopt a relational approach to answer whether virtual reality simulations can be a useful tool to motivate and facilitate the formation of robust relationships with the physical environment, which I grant for the sake of the argument hold relational value. Ultimately, I argue that by understanding environmental value as relational, virtual reality (VR) simulated ecosystems prove to have instrumental value insofar as they facilitate flourishing relationships with biodiverse, more-than-human beings and spaces, provide self-knowledge, and prompt the formation of caring attitudes to conserve the physical environment. I consider skeptics’ worries that VR ecosystems are inauthentic because they are created, lacking appropriate historical origins and connection to the world. Finally, I close by posing future questions for consideration. 1. Introduction: Recent scholarship has recognized that the categories of “intrinsic” and “instrumental” do not fully capture the value of the environment (Chan et al. 2016; Himes and Muraca 2018). Further, the differing philosophical bases of each camp have left environmental thinkers steeped in deep controversy about what approach is correct. Responding to these two factors, recent scholars have introduced a new way of valuing the environment: relational. They argue that relational valuation resonates with a broader range of personal and collective understandings of nature (Norton and Sanbeg 2021). This new way of valuing the environment coincides with the advancement of virtual reality (VR) technologies which have opened up the possibility for wide-ranging simulated experiences. Some of these experiences include simulations of natural environments, processes, and non-human animals.[1] This paper does not consider ethical challenges surrounding the VR industry, but focuses instead on the potential of the technology itself. I consider whether VR simulated environments can facilitate and deepen our relationships with physical environments, which I grant for the sake of the argument have robust relational value. In the first section of this paper, I give a description of this debate and the argument for a relational valuation of the environment. Then, I take on a relational approach to environmental valuation for the remainder of the paper. Using this framework, I consider whether VR can facilitate relational connection and specifically whether it can provide self-knowledge that increases one’s motivation and caring attitudes for the physical more-than-human world. Ultimately, I argue that when understanding environmental value through a relational approach, VR environments have instrumental value insofar as they can promote flourishing relationships with biodiverse more-than-human beings and spaces by offering different forms of embodiment, allowing for access to environments that you are not physically near,[2] and providing self-knowledge. I address a potential worry about whether VR ecosystems are authentic and therefore valuable, specifically whether they meet the criteria of appropriate historical origins and connection with the world (Walter 1939, Elliot 1997, Katz 2009, Dill 2021). I contend that since VR does not have the same restrictions as physical space, it can simulate scenes or facts that make users more aware of ecosystems’ historical origins. Further, building on Cogburn and Silcox (2014), VR gives users important knowledge-how to interact with and have connection to the physical more-than-human world. The paper concludes with a consideration of future questions emerging from this discussion. 2. A New Way of Understanding the Value of the Environment: Relational Within environmental ethics, particularly applied efforts, there have been two broadly accepted categories of value: intrinsic and instrumental. Intrinsic values capture value that is independent of human valuation while instrumental values point to their usefulness to humans. Each broad position rests on differing bases, with instrumentalists favoring utilitarian justifications to maximize sentient well-being, while those in favor of an intrinsic approach argue that nature has a level of Kantian dignity and therefore should be given rights and respect (Norton & Sanbeg 2021, 697). Responding to the inability to harmonize the two positions, in addition to a newfound understanding that the categories of “intrinsic” and “instrumental” are too narrow to capture environmental value, recent scholarship has proposed a new type of value: relational (Muraca 2016; Muraca & Himes 2018; Chan et. al 2016). Relational views of environmental value fall under the umbrella of response-dependence (RD) theories which are a way to reconcile reality with subject-relatedness. They provide an explanation for why certain concepts such as beauty or moral rightness or wrongness exist outside of the subject’s experience of them. A basic schema is as follows: an action x is A (appropriate) if and only if subject S would have response R to x in circumstances C (Kauppinen 2021).[3] There are a variety of theories that fit within this schema. I do not take on one specific form of response-dependence or relational valuation of the environment. Regarding theories of relational valuation of the environment, I pull from both descriptive and normative elements of different approaches. Relational valuations of the environment are concerned with whether certain actions elicit a response that grounds or strengthens the relationship between the subject and the more-than-human world. Some actions will be deemed fitting while others not. For example, planting a tree (action) is appropriate (A) if and only if Jane (subject) would have the response of empathy for the ecosystem (response) in the context of (circumstances) of a relational valuation of the environment. To understand these circumstances of a relational valuation of the environment, I will now look at a few papers that define such values. One such paper that embraces a relational system of environmental valuation is Kai M.A. Chan, et al. (2016). They define relational values as “preferences, principles, and virtues associated with relationships, both interpersonal and as articulated by policies and social norms” (Chan et al 2016, 1462). Accordingly, relational values are not found in objects (as an intrinsic property) but derive from systems of relationships and responsibilities. Chan et. al (2016) expresses how notions of the good life are rooted in relationships and that by thinking through a lens of “intrinsic” and “instrumental” valuation one likely misses other bases for environmental concern. In being relational, “values always involve a person or persons [subject S] choosing an outcome that is possible [response R], in a situation/context [circumstance C]” (Norton & Sanbeg 2021, 698). Take for example, respect. Katie McShane explains that “to respect something is in part to see it as making a claim on your moral attention in its own rights. It is to attribute to the thing a kind of independent standing in your scheme of ‘things that matter’” (2007, 176). Thus, respect (a response) for biodiverse environments is only appropriate when some subject S would attribute (an action) an independent standing as a thing that matters to the environment through recognition of its relational value (circumstances). Some uses of the environment will be deemed inappropriate because they harm the relationship at hand. For example, ocean pollution harms both the ecosystem and the non-human animals within it but also the human communities that enjoy the ocean and use it as a resource. At the same time, certain actions and attitudes (responses) that include the use of the environment can be deemed appropriate when they support human welfare. Take for example the practice of salmon fishing in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska by many indigenous tribes (Brooks 2022). The tribes rely on salmon as a source of protein and salmon is included in various rituals and celebrations. An instrumental valuation of the environment would view the salmon as valuable only as a source of food for the Indigenous communities. An intrinsic valuation would see the salmon as intrinsically valuable themselves and might consider the fishing practices harmful to that inherent value. When assessing from a relational valuation, there are two parties and the relationship between them that must be considered. Relationally, for these tribes, the value of the salmon does not only come from their nourishment but from the annual migration of the salmon and the communal identity that emerges from such relationships (Carothers et al. 2021; Norton and Sanbeg 2021, 702). Thus the salmon fishing supports human welfare and is not simply used in a transactional manner nor are the integrity of inherent value of the salmon ignored through the reverence and celebration included within the ceremonial significance. I argue that a relational way of understanding the value of the environment is better for the following reasons: Endorsing a relational approach to environmental valuation does not require one to side with intrinsic or instrumental theories which have contradictory philosophical bases. Encompasses a broader and more diverse understanding of “nature” (pluralist) because relational values attach to a specific place and situation. And is, therefore, more morally localized - each person can consider what to do through their cultural understanding of nature and act accordingly. 2. a. Incommensurable Philosophical Bases Regarding point one, I argue that the debate about environmental value has reached a standstill, as each position remains open to objections. The instrumentalist viewpoint results in reductionism and has been critiqued for its anthropocentrism (Plumwood 1993, Haraway 2003, Gruen 2015).[4] Even so, those in the intrinsic camp often lack the grounding to express how the environment can hold value for humanity at all. As J.B. Callicott (1994) argued, environmental value cannot be purely objective as value must be attributed by a valuer. I will not consider responses to these objections. Instead, I side with scholars such as Chan et al. (2016), Himes and Muraca (2018), and Norton and Sanbeg (2021) who proposed relational valuation as an alternative way of understanding environmental value. Moving ahead, I will argue that a relational understanding of the value of ecosystems is better than its “intrinsic” and “instrumental” rivals. 2. b. Diverse Understandings of Nature Because people come from different cultural contexts, geographies, climates, and so on, we must have a way of valuing the environment that captures these different perspectives. While instrumental and intrinsic viewpoints may be able to answer the question of varying contexts and perspectives, I argue that a relational approach handles this better through an integration of pluralism within the approach. A relational valuation of the environment is not wholly incompatible with an instrumental or intrinsic valuation. It remains more broad and specifically centers the needs of a relationship which include a variety of sustaining practices, considering the interests of human individuals and communities alongside the environments and ecosystems they live among and how the flourishing of one is entangled with the flourishing of the other. Therefore relationalism inherently embeds pluralism into its framework of valuation, which is a strength of its approach. Embracing a pluralistic way of relating to the environment acknowledges the value of traditional ways of knowing and relating to the environment which may not have the same share of the environmental literature. There are many notions of the good life and many ways of understanding relationships with nature. Gould et al. (2015) even point to the fact that most cultures value nature in multiple ways, even within one cultural system. One specific example is discussed by Robin Wall Kimmerer who also points to the Potawatomi valuation of the pecan groves (2013). She says, the land is “our identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us.” (Kimmerer 2013, 17). Here, Kimmerer describes how for the Potawatomi, the land or the more-than-human world is valued in many ways. To say that one is better than all would lose the richness of understanding found in contexts outside of our own. While there will not be one way of understanding relational environmental value, Raymond et. al (2013) notes how there are common elements of relational values and that environmental values come from a metaphorical basis, shaping people’s relationships. 2. c. Moral Localization I define moral localization as an understanding that one’s self-identity is entangled and contextualized by the local environment and therefore having rootedness in local ecosystems and ways of knowing allows for deeper relationships with nearby environments and the more-than-human creatures that live within them. Bio-regionalist movements adopt this sort of framing, arguing that sustainability on a regional scale can be more effectively accomplished (Hourdequin & Wong 2005, 28). Moral localization is desirable because it can be more easily applied and understood within one’s context. Universalized categories are difficult to understand in real-life situations. Chan et al. (2016) argue that relational values therefore could resonate better with policy advocates and lay people in their varied contexts and ways of interacting with the environment. Further, relational valuation allows communities to center local ways of knowing the ecosystems they inhabit and interact with, which they argue could increase local appreciation and concern for their land and seascapes. Relational values base themselves on relationships that already exist and do not try to fabricate solutions to environmental issues from an outside perspective of what is best. Some communities have special relationships with the ecosystems nearby and understanding environmental value as relational makes centering those relationships possible and good. Because relational values rely on an individual and their context, each person has a ‘way in’’ to environmental ethical relating. Having considered the incommensurable divide between the “intrinsic” and “instrumental” camps of environmental valuation, the benefit of including a diversity of understandings of nature, and moral localization, I’ve shown that a relational valuation of the environment is beneficial and should be further pursued. For the remainder of this paper, I will take on a relational approach to environmental values. 3. The Problem: Virtual Reality Ecosystems Having established a basis for relational values, I will consider whether VR simulations of the environment have instrumental value insofar as they motivate caring relationships with the more-than-human world. The advancement of VR technologies has created the possibility to simulate ecosystems, processes, and non-human animals. Some may argue that simulations of the environment don’t have the same value or any value at all as they are human-created rather than naturally occurring, or that they do not emit the same transformational virtues that physical ecosystems can. Further, in taking on a relational approach to environmental value, there could be arguments that VR environments hinder our ability to relate to the physical more-than-human spaces, as spending time within technologically mediated spaces takes people away from the more-than-human world. Even so, with the increasing use of VR, these simulations will be used by more and more people. I take the advancement and increasing use of VR technologies as an invitation to consider their value and impact on users, specifically as they relate to environmental ethics. I aim to examine if VR-simulated ecosystems can facilitate relationships with the physical environment, provide self-knowledge, and if our interactions in VR environments can prompt motivation and attitudes of care for the physical environment. 4. VR Simulated Ecosystems: Tool, Self-Knowledge, and Motivation First, I establish how VR technologies are different from other technologies in their immersive affordances and possibilities for blended forms of identity. There are three main ways of thinking about technology’s relationship with society. This paper adopts a cultural approach to technology (Borgmann 1984; Ihde 1990; Verbeek 2011) which argues that technologies can influence the way humans perceive the world and their behavior within it, attributing a degree of moral agency to technologies.[5] Following the cultural approach to technology, phenomenologists would suggest that “to understand the technology/society relationship we need to reveal how they co-constitute each other—i.e. draw on each other for their ongoing meaning and sense” (Introna 2017). Such co-constitution means that the technologies we engage with shape our view of the world and our interaction with it. This is particularly relevant for VR technologies due to their level of immersion. Unlike other online or virtual spaces, VR allows for full immersion with synchronous sound and haptics technologies that make virtually real experiences possible. This includes a feeling of “presence” in which a person feels located in their environment and senses that they are physically doing things within it (Sanchez-Vives & Slater 2005). In addition to presence, a sense of embodiment or “body transfer,” where the user experiences their virtual body as their own, can emerge (Maselli and Slater 2013). Virtually real experiences go beyond presence and refer to when someone experiences their virtual embodiment as more than fictional and separate from their physical embodiment, but real in itself (Ramirez 2022). Users can experience a sense of ownership-illusion that their virtual avatar is part of them (Maselli and Slater, 2013). Therefore, how one interacts with a simulated environment is not qualitatively different from how they interact with a physical environment. The immersive affordances of VR technologies not only impact one’s sense of embodiment but also, one’s identity formation and selfhood. A study by Guo Freeman et. al (2020) found that users create avatars similar to their physical appearance, reflecting a level of connection and how they see themselves, not simply their avatar as engaging in these experiences. Further, they found that VR affordances of haptics and full-body tracking made users feel more engaged and intimate with their avatars. VR even allowed some participants to realize undiscovered parts of themselves. Such levels of intimacy provide strong evidence that users’ environment and interaction within VR spaces can motivate or alter their behavior in physical life. Since VR spaces obtain a multitude of possibilities for representation both of the user themself and of the virtual environment, there is potential to expose people to virtual places that they would not be able to interact with otherwise. For example, someone could be placed into a virtual war environment in which they are embodied as an infantry member, and their experiences within this environment and how it makes them feel may inform their beliefs about human rights or their understanding of war which become integral to their identity. Thus, VR spaces are different from other online spaces that only permit two-dimensional interaction and provide unique affordances such as full body tracking, haptics, and synchronous sound that make the user feel as though they are truly participating rather than watching their avatar complete tasks or engage in activities. Such participation entails a potential transformation of one’s understanding of their self and identity, as their identities inside and outside VR cannot be neatly separated. Thus, the potential for embodiment shapes users’ sense of identity and its formation in ways that other technologies cannot. 4. a. VR Ecosystems Can Facilitate Relationships With Physical Environments Because VR landscapes themselves are not sentient, intelligent, or welfare subjects they cannot flourish and therefore they do not have robust relational value.[6] However, I defend that VR allows users to gain self-knowledge that can improve people’s ability to form relationships with the physical environment, which, recall, I granted for the sake of the argument do have relational value. The basis for my argument rests on two points: VR can increase self-knowledge because users can gain first-person agential experience in many different types of ecosystems, including ones that they might not be able to access otherwise. VR has been shown to prompt caring attitudes and motivation to conserve. 4. b. Self-Knowledge: Experiencing Different Types of Ecosystems Martha Nussbaum (1985) in “Finely Aware and Richly Responsible” argues that literature can expand our moral imagination as we can consider moral actions at a distance. Using Nussbaum’s argument as a framework so too can we consider how VR avatars, like characters in literature, can assist in our consideration of moral actions at a distance. In VR, users have the capacity to choose what their character looks like. Not only can users embody themselves within a different sex or gender than they are physically presenting, but further they can embody themselves as non-human animals, fictional characters, and even color-changing mist. I am not arguing that being embodied in such ways allows you to know what it is like to be physically embodied in that way, as each person and non-human animal has a variety of experiences and backgrounds that shape their perspective. However, VR can, for example, allow us to experience a simulated leaf from the size of an ant or experience a simulation of flooding which may be outside of our personal experience. Such experiences can prompt further conservation by more deeply understanding the perspective and context of ecological systems and non-human animals. I contend that these provide self-knowledge as one experiences to some degree something which one has not as well as one’s reaction to this new experience. This information informs future action within the physical more-than-human world. VR also opens up the option to simulate types of environments that you are not physically near. Take for example someone who lives in the middle of New York City. While there are surrounding parks and states that are less urbanized, you likely do not have access to diverse ecosystems. Even those who live in the Rocky Mountains or Yosemite Valley do not have easy access to other types of ecosystems that move and function in ways that are hard to grasp without experiencing them. VR removes these constraints of place and provides the opportunity and unique affordances to experience simulations of these ecosystems without leaving your home.[7] Admittedly, VR could diminish the grandeur that comes with the many variations of nature that we want to see by making it too accessible. Perhaps someone who has a reverent relationship with nature draws this in part from the knowledge that they will never experience everything. Still, exposure to such ecosystems through VR could narrow a knowledge-gap and prompt further concern for environmental issues. Thus, VR environments facilitate self-knowledge by giving users an entrance into spaces in which they are not hindered by physical constraints.[8] Building on this, I argue that the potential for blended identities exemplifies a capacity to increase self-knowledge and therefore facilitate intentionally relating with the physical more-than-human world. From a relational value approach, responsibility and accountability emerge from an understanding of human and environmental selves as entangled and interdependent. Relational approaches see humans and the environment not only as in relation but as interdependent with one another for our selfhood. Hourdequin & Wong (2005) argue that the conception of a socially relational self entails that we are responsive to those around us. Thus, relationality and interconnectedness with the more-than-human world entail normative responsibilities to those we are interconnected with. While I am not arguing here that VR environments are selves that are entangled with users’ selves, I do defend that blended forms of physical and virtual identity are possible and that these can help us to relate and care for the physical environment. It is understood that the physical body and self are intimately connected. Bodies can express the self and in the same way, VR bodies can express the self. Blended identities therefore refer to the self or identity that includes both experiences from one’s physical body and virtual body. This process of immersion and spending time in the VR-simulated environments and experiencing them through one’s avatar allows users to gain self-knowledge. For example, in experiencing a marine mammal getting caught in a plastic soda ring in VR through one’s virtual avatar, then the user can relate to the experience of the animal. In general, VR enables users to become aware of the processes and systems of the environment.[9] Thus, through blended virtual and physical identities and VR’s unique affordance that allows for attachment, responsibility, and immersion in the virtual environment, users are changed by what they’ve learned, understood, and experienced within VR. I will address whether the artificial creation of VR-simulated environments impacts their value in the objection section to follow. 4. c. VR Ecosystems Caring Attitudes and Motivation to Conserve Having established that VR ecosystems have instrumental value through their capacity for embodiment outside of physical constrictions, as well as their ability to put users in contact with ecosystems that are not easily accessible to them, and having established that users gain self-knowledge through blended identities, I now argue that VR ecosystems can prompt caring attitudes and motivation to conserve the physical environment. Let’s begin by considering an example of how caring attitudes and motivation might look like in a virtual context. Take for example Minecraft worlds. In Minecraft, users can build and design worlds. Users can form a sense of connection to and responsibility for what happens in their world, developing a sense of attachment to their worlds and fostering a desire that they be maintained and prosper (caring attitudes). Further, users often desire to spend ample time in their Minecraft worlds as they continue to build and grow them (motivation). Recognizing that feelings of attachment and responsibility can emerge from a two-dimensional game like Minecraft suggests that such feelings are more likely to be present in VR-simulated environments due to the level of immersion and possibility for presence, embodiment, and virtually real experiences. VR technologies offer a method of engagement that is immersive and can prompt intentional interaction with the physical environment by motivating behavior and putting people in contact with the environment in a new and interesting way. One way that immersion assists motivation is through the formation of moral emotions such as empathy. According to Batson (1991, 2015), empathy is the core source of altruistic motivation. Therefore, if VR can encourage empathetic attitudes, and we accept that VR affordances including embodiment can impact our identity formation and interaction with the physical world, then it is possible that VR can elicit caring attitudes. According to Simmons, empathy “in its fullest form includes both the cognitive and affective dimensions” (Simmons 2014, 98). The cognitive dimension includes the capacity to identify and understand another’s emotions. Regarding empathizing with the environment, there are many limitations to doing so. For instance, many people do not have access to natural spaces, particularly in urbanized areas. Additionally, there are epistemic limitations to our ability to know what it is like to be a non-human animal or plant or fungi. There are further limitations surrounding the types of environments that we have access to which hinder our ability to conceptualize how our actions (such as traveling by plane or recycling) can impact environments that we do not directly interact with. Since VR facilitates actor-based action rather than simply remaining a spectator, the further virtual agency suggests an additional potential to impact real-world behavior.[10] I am not arguing that VR resolves these issues entirely nor am I arguing that even if VR could elicit caring attitudes they would always lead to moral behavior and ethical relating with the physical environment. Some fear that VR may lead people to abandon conservation efforts, seeing virtual alternatives as replacements. This paper recognizes VR’s instrumental value as a tool to form habits, learn, and gain new experiences, not as a substitute. VR environmental experiences could allow students and at-home users to immerse themselves in environments and the impacts of environmental change that they would not otherwise be able to, and such exposure has been shown to alter behavior (Dari et al 2024). For example, Rueda argues that “VR allows us to reinforce moral qualities through doing and establishing habits, which is fundamental to moral development according to ancient Greek thinkers and contemporary pragmatists” (Rueda 2023, 5). Such experiences, even though virtual, can inform and motivate environmental behavior, providing context for why and how animals or ecosystems respond to particular events and underscoring a deeper commitment to ensuring the flourishing of environments. While new and still emerging, some studies have already shown the connection between VR environmental experiences and heightened senses of environmental interest and action. For instance, Villena-Taranilla, et. al. (2022) found that VR can help people remember things and understand them better by using more than one sense and creating an interactive learning experience. This allows students to become involved in the learning process. Lo and Tsai (2022) considered how well VR can help people care about the world and act in ways that are good for it. People who took part in the study used VR to feel what climate change is doing to coral reefs. The results showed that the VR experience made people feel much more connected to the environment and made them more likely to support environmental efforts. Additionally, Biasutti (2015) showed the relevance of the setting, and the methods applied to develop environmental awareness and skills related to managing sustainability issues, finding the importance of natural and ecological concepts. This exemplifies how VR allows for the creation of such settings that increase environmental literacy by exposing people to concepts and even allowing them to practice problem-solving that would lead to environmental care and empathy. 5. Objections/Response: In this section, I consider a skeptical concern that VR ecosystems are inauthentic because they are created, and therefore engaging with them hinders our relational formation with the more-than-human world and in turn does not lead to conservation.[11] Skeptics may argue that VR technologies pose a potential threat to the formation of relation-based interventionism[12] because in being created rather than naturally occurring, they do not have the same psychological benefits. The inauthenticity of VR simulations is argued to fail to confer value. Suspicion surrounding VR’s mediation (Mander 1978) and synthetic nature (Virilio 1994), frame VR as ultimately deceptive. Not only this but Dill (2021) cautions that even if VR simulations can increase access to simulated ecosystems “we should avoid focusing on the widespread dissemination of immersive, simulative technologies as the primary [emphasis added] means to combat environmental, access inequity” (Dill 2021, 2). It is argued that VR simulations are less valuable because they only confer instrumental value and are not intrinsically or relationally valuable in and of themselves. Dill (2021) specifically points to the fact that VR simulations of environments do not have historical origins and do not connect us to the world which make them only “parasitically” useful. Dill uses the replicas of artwork as a thought experiment for VR simulations saying that because they were not created by the original artist at the time the work was made in addition to the fact that there are distinctive transformational powers that emerge from things that have persisted, simulations are less valuable and do not prompt people to conserve to the same extent. Regarding connection to the world, Dill uses the experience machine (Nozick 1974) example, specifically someone immersed in the High Rockies (via physical reality vs. simulated reality), to argue that there is a shift when the person realizes they are in the simulation “for she values her connection to the world insofar as it partially determines her self-identity” (Dill 2021, 13). I am willing to accept that virtual reality simulations are less relationally valuable than the physical more-than-human world. However, regarding historical origins, I defend that while VR-simulations cannot replicate or imitate the historicity of physical ecosystems, they can help make users more aware of the value of persistence over a long period of time. VR simulations do not have the same limitations as physical space which allows for the simulation and therefore experience of things that are not possible to replicate in physical reality. For example, VR could simulate the way that particular environments looked before human settlement or could present interactive facts about the age of old-growth forests that facilitate users’ interest and understanding of the value of the historicity of the more-than-human world. Thus, I contend that VR can confer intellectual transformation about the historical origins of physical environments, just in a different way. Just as a person’s avatar is not just a virtual body that someone steps into, but a true extension of their identity and selfhood, so too can VR simulated ecosystems confer intellectual transformation and therefore prompt people to conserve. Considering connection to the world, I turn to Cogburn and Silcox (2013) who point to two main worries emerging from popular and philosophical literature. First there is a worry that no genuine value could come from objects in a virtual environment and secondly there is a worry about knowledge of the external world. Addressing the first, they distinguish between passive and active VR because a concern in Nozick’s experience machine is that we would be giving up being a certain way (Nozick 1974). According to them, a measure of active VR is the extent to which the virtual and actual personhood become indistinguishable. Thus “in active, non-solipsistic VR, the player is not only “doing something,” but is also “being” a certain way at least insofar as her/his behavior has ethically significant effects upon the lives of others” (Cogburn and Silcox 2013, 569). Recognizing that VR is active, means that actions within it have ethical weight outside of the virtual realm, as active experiences within VR shape users’ beliefs and ethical choices when interacting with the physical world. Also, VR experiences do not inhibit one’s ability to “be” a certain way. Ultimately, they argue that VR should be seen as an improvement upon fictional media giving users important knowledge-how to deal with and learn about the actual world. Thus, VR’s status as “created” rather than naturally occurring does not hinder intellectual transformation and users’ ability to “be” is not diminished in any way. I will now consider one specific example of how VR can facilitate knowledge-how, providing experiences that are only possible through our imagination. Consider a VR experience that places you in the perspective of a butterfly. Butterflies are insects. They have six legs, antennae, and wings. Unlike humans, butterflies cannot eat from their mouthparts. Instead, they use a long straw-like appendage to suck up nutrients from flowers (“Butterfly Behavior”).[13] Butterflies engage in a process of metamorphosis, shedding their adolescent bodies. Additionally, butterflies are signs of biodiversity and indicate a wide range of other invertebrates.[14] Therefore, not only are butterflies different in many ways to humans, in their life cycles and natural processes but they are also significant to the flourishing and biodiversity of environments worldwide. Such differences in experience could make it particularly difficult for humans to relate to or understand butterfly experience. To partially close this gap, a butterfly pavilion could utilize VR technologies within its exhibits to foster caring attitudes and interest in butterfly conservation.[15] This VR experience may look as follows. The virtual environment could simulate what it is like to see from the perspective of a butterfly. The user could see other butterflies and interact with them. Further, as a butterfly, you could use an antenna to eat and shed your body in metamorphosis (possibly using haptics technologies as well). While this experience will not result in epistemic certainty surrounding what it is like to be a butterfly, it could prompt knowledge and relational connection with physical butterflies. Won et al (2015) found that humans have the mental plasticity to adopt virtual body representations including having eight limbs like a lobster. By experiencing what I will call “butterfly seeing,” users are motivated to form empathy for butterflies by experiencing in some way what they experience. The formation of empathetic attitudes for butterflies could contribute to the formation of a sense of care and concern for butterflies and their flourishing. In this way, these technologies can “illuminate aspects of reality that are normally concealed from ordinary perception” (Cogburn Silcox 2013, 564). Therefore, while features including historical origins are unquestionably significant to environmental health and conservation efforts, I have shown that VR environments can confer transformative experiences and provide knowledge-how to learn about and apply to the physical more-than-human world.[16] 6. Conclusion This paper used a relational way of understanding environmental value to consider whether VR simulations of ecosystems, processes, and non-human animals have instrumental value in facilitating relationships with biodiverse beings and spaces. Considering a potential worry surrounding the inauthenticity of VR-simulated ecosystems, this paper argued that VR can improve users’ awareness of the historical origins of the more-than-human world and that VR can increase knowledge-how which they can apply to interaction with physical environments. Thus I have shown that VR simulated ecosystems provide opportunities for moral formation, including issues relating to the environment. Having done so, I recognize there are some unexplored issues that I did not have room to address but must be acknowledged which I bring up here. I acknowledge that I did not comment on the ethical status of virtual actions themselves. This would include questions regarding whether any action done in VR, such as virtual killing, has the same weight as in physical reality and whether taking part in certain actions impact one’s moral formation. Further, while I focused on the potential of VR technologies to facilitate relationship building with the more-than-human world, there are many factors, particularly relating to the business of technological creation of VR which require further consideration especially relating to whether VR will lead to more pro-environmental behavior and moral formation. For instance, the exploitative potential of VR technologies and companies, particularly of younger users must be further considered. A key to VR promoting pro-environmental behavior is how the simulations are created and what they depict. Power relations will remain a key piece of the puzzle and will determine whether VR simulations promote or inhibit positive moral consequences. A continual challenge remains that influential technology companies will portray environments using a capitalistic mindset, reducing VR ecosystems to objects for consumption. Particularly if we take the relational approach to understanding environmental value to be an improvement upon “intrinsic” and “instrumental” conversations, then the potential extension of colonialism into these spaces must be scrutinized. Relational valuation is centered around building relationships with the more-than-human world which require continual care and interaction with local landscapes. Colonialism can become a problem when creators of VR spaces are more concerned with profit, failing to reflect upon the fact that technologies often harm the environment in their creation and use. In addition, the values embedded within technological spaces have lasting impacts on the moral formation of users and could further the dominance of Western cultural understandings of environmental value which conflicts one of the keys to relational valuation: moral localization. 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Buchmann (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons), 1–16. ________________ [1] Take for example: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/experience-your-carbon-footprint-vr [2] To understand the value of accessing environments we are not physically near through VR, we might look to a view called the transparency method. This method finds that we ascertain our own thoughts by looking outward instead of through introspection, which is unique to self-knowledge. In “looking through” the (transparent) mental state, the transparency method finds that one directly sees the state of the world it represents. Thus, through the transparency method, VR’s capacity to place users in environments that they may not be able to experience otherwise, such as scorched forests or flooded marshes, the user can gain insight into that state of environmental issues directly without needing to travel to those places in physical reality. Gertler, Brie. “Self-Knowledge.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 9 Nov. 2021, plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-knowledge/#TraAcc. [3] See for further explanation: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-sentimentalism/supplement2.html [4] Plumwood (1993) and other feminist scholars (Haraway 2003, Gruen 2015) have been quick to point out how instrumentalist frameworks inherit capitalistic and colonial perspectives, leading to an orientation toward the world of dualization. “Nature” becomes something that can be justifiably dominated and controlled, understood both descriptively and normatively. In seeing nature as valuable for human use, hierarchical power relationships form and legitimize a ruler/ruled dynamic. This leads to continued inferiorization and objectification of all that is perceived as lower, including “nature.” [5] Cultural approaches emerged largely out of developments in science, technology, and society and often have a basis in phenomenology. For phenomenologists, the technological artifact emerges from a prior ‘technological’ attitude towards the world such as that discussed by Heiddeger in (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Questions. Because of this technological attitude or script, it is argued that technologies influence people’s perception of the world and even their behavior. [6] There may be limitations on what we can have relationships with e.g. abiotic environments. I do not have room to consider in depth whether we can relate in a robust way with simulated characters or environments. For now I accept that relationships as understood through a relational value account which are reciprocal, entangled, and include responsibility and accountability relations must be between two living or non-artificially created entities. [7] Take for example: https://vhil.stanford.edu/downloads/soae [8] I acknowledge that there is a potential objection that simulated environments do in fact incorporate a societal context. I do not have space to consider this here but hope to pursue this line of inquiry in a later paper. [9] We can also look to relationships that formed between two human users in VR environments as an indicator that relating to VR environments is possible. In a study by Freeman and Acena (2021) many users entered VR spaces without the intent of making social connections but as they engaged further with the technology and had experiences they started wanting to meet others. One user described meeting others as “accidental” but “a good thing.” [10] Brey 1999 as cited in Rueda (2023). “Doing Good with Virtual Reality: The Ethics of Using Virtual Simulations for Improving Human Morality.” [11] I acknowledge that there may be an additional objection that there is a slippery slope concern of virtual technologies entirely replacing physical interaction with the environment and in addition, causing domineering interaction with it when we do engage with the more-than-human world. Under a relationalist view, such replacement would be particularly harmful to human relationships with the physical non-human world. Also, approaching nature through domination would hinder relational formation and put humans and the more-than-human world in tension with one another. I do not have space to consider this objection here. [12] I am using “interventionism” here to refer to arguments that humans should intervene and work to find solutions to environmental problems which are often justified by human participation in climate change and ethical arguments to reduce animal suffering as described in McCumber and King’s (2020) “The Wild in Fire: Human Aid to Wildlife in the Disasters of the Anthropocene.” [13] Find out more at: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/butterflies/butterfly-behavior [14] https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/why-butterflies-matter [15] See example in a Colorado butterfly pavilion: https://butterflies.org/learn/schools-and-youth-groups/virtual-learning/ [16] More empirical studies are necessary to confirm these claims.

The Empathy of Otherness: Edith Stein’s Empathy and the Atypical Empathized Philosophy Previous Next By Paul Cruz Note from JPPE Team: The citations in this paper are in MLA format. This is not the standard Chicago style used by the Journal and future submissions with alternative citation methods will need to be reformatted before publication. In this paper, I will argue that Edith Stein’s conception of empathy in On the Problem of Empathy can be used to explain the experienced disconnect between neurotypical people and neurodiverse people; between people and other animals; and between people and various robots. In each case, an individual attempts to understand another entity by imagining how they would feel if the other entity’s experience happened to them. The success of this projection depends upon how accurately their imagined reaction aligns with the other entity’s actual reaction, the similarity between the subject and the object, and the feasibility of such a projection. In section one, I will define Stein’s conception of empathy; in section two, I will apply Stein’s conception of empathy to neurodivergent people and show why there is often an experienced disconnect between neurotypical and neurodivergent people when they try to empathize with each other; in section three, I will explore how certain animals, such as crows, can be empathized with, sometimes to an uncomfortable extent; in section four, I will define the concept of “the uncanny valley” and use Stein’s conception of empathy to attempt to explain why it occurs; in section five, I will address potential counterarguments against my claims; and in section six, I will give my conclusion and closing thoughts. 1: Edith Stein’s Conception of Empathy It’s important to establish a basic understanding of Edith Stein’s conception of empathy before applying it to the issues explored in this paper. In her work, Stein describes empathy as beginning with an encounter with an external entity. Upon this encounter, the individual intuitively and immediately (“primordially,” in Stein’s words––meaning intrinsically, or arising from within the self) perceives some features and/or actions of the entity as indicative of a broad emotional state.[1] They then project their self emotionally onto the other entity’s perceived or assumed “con-primordial” (Stein 53) (outside of the individual, or extrinsic) emotions, and through projection, they experience their own primordial approximation of that entity’s “con-primordial” emotions. In other words, they experience what they perceive or assume to be the other entity’s emotions through the lens of their own internal emotional framework. As such, the emotions of both entities are experienced primordially within their respective beings. Since those emotions are processed intrinsically through each entity’s respective emotional frameworks, a gap in the resultant emotions is almost––if not entirely––inevitable in natural interactions. Stein further elaborates on empathy by discussing how the “type” (54-5) of an entity can significantly affect an individual’s ability to empathize with it. Type can be understood as the measure of the degree of similarity a person has to another entity. A greater similarity of type results in a greater amount of potential empathy for the similarly-typed entity, whereas a greater dissimilarity of type can result in a lesser amount of potential empathy for the dissimilarly-typed entity. Type, however, should not be understood as synonymous with mere species, gender, or physical appearance: while all three aforementioned descriptors can influence the degree of type-ness a person has, no single descriptor can determine the degree of type-ness an entity has. Stein uses the example of an injured dog’s paw as something that someone can feel empathy for because the type can be considered similar. While a dog’s paw and a human hand look quite dissimilar, the status of the dog’s paw as being injured allows an individual to empathize with it. This is possible because they can presumably understand what it’s like emotionally to have an injured limb, or, in Stein’s words, they can empathize with “a sensitive limb of a living body” (55), even if said limb is not human. 2: Empathy for the Neurodivergent With Stein’s conception of empathy and her nuanced idea of type in mind, one can better understand how empathy functions broadly within human interactions. While Stein illustrates cross-species empathy using examples such as the injured dog’s paw, differences in emotional and cognitive type can similarly create empathetic disconnect among humans. Individuals more readily empathize with those who share similar emotional experiences, cognitive processes, or worldviews—essentially, a similarity in cognitive type. Conversely, significant differences in internal emotional or cognitive frameworks naturally form barriers to empathy. Interactions between neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals, such as those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), illustrate how differences in cognitive type can produce empathetic disconnect. Stein asserts that empathy is fundamentally an imaginative projection of oneself onto another’s "con-primordial" emotional state, presuming similarity in emotional experiences (54-55). Typically, people anticipate emotional alignment unless consistently shown otherwise. Between neurotypical individuals, cognitive-emotional frameworks tend to be sufficiently similar, imparting an empathetic projection that approaches a broad understanding. However, neurodivergent individuals frequently possess distinctive neurological frameworks relative to neurotypical individuals, leading them to interpret and respond to social situations differently. When neurotypical individuals attempt to understand neurodivergent experiences, they inevitably apply their own cognitive frameworks to situations that are processed in fundamentally different ways, creating an intrinsic empathetic gap. This empathetic gap manifests across multiple domains of cognition, emotion, and social interpretation. Research illuminates important cognitive differences between neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals. Individuals with ASD demonstrate distinctive patterns in several cognitive domains, including theory of mind—the ability to understand that others have different thoughts and feelings than oneself—and information processing (Velikonja et al., 2019). Their "weak central coherence" cognitive style means they often perceive individual details with remarkable clarity while finding it challenging to integrate these details into a cohesive whole. This different way of processing information means that the social situations neurotypical individuals navigate intuitively may appear as disconnected elements to autistic individuals. Similarly, ADHD involves differences in executive functioning, particularly in response inhibition and attention regulation (Martinez et al., 2024). Emotional experiences also differ significantly between neurotypes. Autistic individuals often experience emotions intensely but struggle with identifying and regulating these emotions, leading to emotional overwhelm (Cibralic et al., 2019). This doesn’t mean autistic individuals feel emotions more strongly in a simple quantitative sense, but rather that they experience emotions in qualitatively different ways than neurotypical individuals. Similarly, individuals with ADHD frequently experience emotional impulsivity—emotions that arise quickly, shift rapidly, and may be expressed with an intensity that neurotypical people find surprising (Soler-Gutiérrez et al., 2023). Social interpretation adds another dimension to these differences. Autistic individuals often process social information differently, dedicating attention to process aspects of social cognition that neurotypical individuals handle automatically (Masoomi et al., 2024). This means that facial expressions, tone of voice, and other social signals that neurotypical people interpret intuitively may require deliberate analysis for autistic individuals. Individuals with ADHD also experience social interactions differently, with their attention differences and impulsivity creating patterns of social engagement that neurotypical individuals may perceive as unexpected (Morellini et al., 2022; Bora & Pantelis, 2016). For example, a person with ADHD may interrupt conversations, shift topics abruptly, and display intense interest in some topics while seeming disengaged from others. They may also miss subtle social cues and body language if their attention drifts. Such behaviors, while neurologically based, are frequently misinterpreted through a neurotypical lens. Because of empathetic differences in projection, such behaviors are often seen as rudeness, aloofness, or a general personal failing––assumptions that attribute intention to actions more often rooted in fundamental differences of cognition. Collectively, these differences in cognitive processing, emotional experience, and social interpretation all contribute to a fundamental dissimilarity in Stein’s concept of type. When neurotypical individuals project themselves into neurodivergent experiences following Stein’s model of empathy, they imagine these experiences processed through neurotypical frameworks rather than as they’re actually experienced. This empathy gap is reciprocal: neurodivergent individuals similarly encounter difficulty in projecting themselves onto neurotypical emotional reactions. Autistic and ADHD individuals may perceive neurotypical emotional expressions and social interactions as confusing or unintuitive, amplifying the mutual distance. This reciprocal challenge illustrates how empathy, while originating primordially within each individual, inevitably reflects the degree of cognitive alignment between the empathizer and the empathized. When empathetic projections fall within expected thresholds of understanding, they foster connection; when they fall outside these thresholds, they can create a sense of unease or disconnect that reflects the inherent limitations––and consequences––of projecting oneself onto cognitive frameworks that process the world differently. 3: Empathy for Crows The concept of type discussed previously also plays a fundamental role in understanding empathy for animals. As illustrated through the injured paw example, individuals can experience empathy for animals by recognizing characteristics that bridge the apparent type-difference between themselves and others––even across species. For any characteristic in an entity that is roughly analogous to something the empathizer can experience––such as with pain in the injured paw example––a person can use that to empathize with such a being. But discussing only positive examples of empathy risks overlooking a crucial observation: if Stein’s empathy is the projection of oneself onto another’s perceived emotions, individuals should be able to feel a form of negative empathy, too; that is, empathy rooted in emotions that people would consider negative. For example, certain crows in Australia are aware that cane toads are poisonous. Instead of ignoring these toads, the crows are intelligent enough to flip over the frog and stab the frog in the throat, where the flesh is softer and non-poisonous (Bolton). In fact, crows are intelligent to the point that they appear to be both self-aware and capable of retrieving old memories (Begley). Taken together, these two facts are likely to evoke a sense of unease in the reader. That discomfort, however, is a form of empathy as well: upon considering the previous examples, individuals automatically attempt to project themselves onto the assumed emotions of the mentally-visualized crow killing another being, but the empathy isn’t deeply felt. Rather, they perhaps imagine an instinct-driven creature that lives in the moment to gain sustenance, much like a lion or tiger. The creature is of a fundamentally different type, it would seem, even if they can pull off a few clever tricks to kill things easier. When people realize that crows are deeply intelligent, self-aware beings that are capable of reflecting on the past and planning for the future, the crows' usage of creativity to safely and effectively kill another being, makes the crow become sinister and disturbing. The crow is no longer entirely of a different type than people, but seems, in a way, part human in its consciousness.[2] Crows even remember human faces, and they’ll communicate with each other about the danger a particular human face poses if the crows decide they didn’t like the person that possessed said face (Nijhuis). Even though we, as humans, know that crows are not humans, the fact that their mental faculties seem quite advanced––even similar to our own in some cases––makes us perceive crows as being partially of the same type as us. And in so doing, the previous dismissal of the crow’s behavior no longer becomes entirely possible. We empathize with the perceived emotions of the crows and project ourselves involuntarily yet successfully toward them. We identify with how we think the crows feel, and the cold, matter-of-fact brutality of their actions––the approximation of which is perceived primordially from within us as negative empathy––disturbs us. 4: The Uncanny Valley This paper has covered the possibilities of empathy among living creatures, whether through positive empathy, negative empathy, type or otherwise. What’s left to be explored now is how empathy responds to something that seems almost alive, but isn’t. First, though, it is necessary to understand the concept of the uncanny valley. The uncanny valley was first proposed by Masahiro Mori during his tenure as a professor of robotics at the Tokyo Institute of Technology after he wrote an article that was published in an obscure journal in 1970 (Mori). Since then, his ideas have become increasingly popular as technology improves to the point where people can create robots, animations, and figures that approach human likeness without fully achieving it. Mori’s essay postulated that the more human-like a figure becomes in appearance, behavior, and movement, or otherwise, the more affinity one will feel toward it––up to a certain point. Upon reaching a certain threshold of human-likeness for said figure, the trend of increasing affinity toward it will sharply reverse. The built-up affinity for the figure will quickly become negative. The figure doesn’t evoke a neutral feeling, as humans might have toward a generic industrial machine, but a feeling of visceral disgust, revulsion, and even fear toward the aforementioned figure, greater than that felt towards even a corpse. However, after increasing the human-likeness further and the figure starts to become indistinguishable from a human, the affinity for the figure reaches––and soon after exceeds––the previous high that was achieved just before the prior sharp downturn in affinity. The period in which human affinity toward the aforementioned figure turns negative––and stays negative until the figure looks almost indistinguishable from a human––is called the uncanny valley. Stated differently, the uncanny valley covers the period of immense creepiness wherein a figure––say, a robot––looks almost, but not quite, human. With the concepts covered in sections one through three of this paper in mind, Stein’s conception of empathy can be used to explain this yet unsolved phenomenon. First, start off by considering a fully industrial robot, devoid of any human-like appearance whatsoever. No matter if all the cogs were polished or broken, observers would not feel empathy for the machine. The robot seems entirely dead to human perception. As a robot acquires increasingly human-like features, human perception of it shifts: people begin to attribute qualities of consciousness and animation to it proportionate to its human resemblance. However, upon reaching the uncanny valley, the robot loses its accumulated aliveness, without ever becoming quite dead. Observers enter the uncanny valley because they see an object with an appearance that is not quite human yet not quite robotic. The object doesn’t have the aliveness of a human nor the deadness of a pure machine. The object becomes neither alive nor dead, neither human nor robot. It becomes uncategorizable by immediate perception. And because the object fails to be anything distinct, when observers attempt to empathetically project themselves onto such an object—to simulate its emotional state—the projection fails. The object occupies the liminal state between mechanical and human, never achieving the successful emotional mapping that empathy requires. In failing to project themselves onto said object, humans fail to understand (or at least fail to try to understand) the object. And in failing to try to understand said object, the object becomes utterly alien to the viewer, who begins to see the object as some ambiguous threat. In other words, the failure to empathize with an object makes it uncanny and threatening: it seems completely foreign, yet is unmistakably familiar to the observer; the perceived threat remains there, yet cannot be grasped conceptually. Implicitly, however, this argument rests upon the assumption that humans can indeed empathize with things that are not alive in any biological sense, as with a robot. And indeed, non-living things can be empathized with: if someone pulls up a picture of an adorable robot, and then thinks about crushing the head of said adorable robot until it violently breaks under the pressure, it seems like an awful thing to contemplate. Despite the robot not being sentient, the appearance of it as something that can be empathized with, particularly in a positive manner, allows the attribution of a sentient-like worth to it. Likewise, if a robot is indistinguishable from a human, people can feel empathy for the robot, because they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. 5: Potential Objections Several objections could be raised against the application of Stein’s empathy framework presented in this paper. This section addresses the most substantive challenges to the analysis. First, critics might argue that the uncanny valley effect stems from reminders of death rather than failed empathy. According to this view, robots that occupy this uncanny threshold between mechanical and human trigger fear of mortality, similar to how corpses might disturb observers. The problem with this explanation is that it doesn’t align with Mori’s original findings: a corpse produces discomfort, but not nearly as much as entities in the deepest part of the uncanny valley (Mori). If reminders of death were the main cause, corpses should be the most disturbing stimuli––yet in comparison to the furthest depths of the uncanny valley, according to Mori, “We might be glad” to merely encounter “the still valley of the corpse” (Mori). Second, someone might question how something can be "neither dead nor alive" as suggested about entities in the uncanny valley. After all, some may argue that something is either living or it isn’t. This objection misunderstands the point being made. While machines are obviously non-living in an ontological sense, what matters for empathy is immediate perception, not logical categorization. When people encounter robots that exist on the border between recognizably mechanical and convincingly human, perception struggles to place them into familiar categories. The emotional response—the basis for empathy—occurs in this immediate perception, not after careful logical analysis. The uncanny valley exploits precisely this gap between perception and categorization. Third, some may question whether the discomfort experienced when contemplating intelligent crow behavior truly constitutes "negative empathy" as described in this paper. Critics could argue that this reaction is simply fear or disgust at recognizing predatory behavior, rather than a genuine empathetic projection. This objection fails to account for the key insight that the discomfort emerges specifically when recognizing the crow’s intelligence and self-awareness. The negative feeling doesn’t arise from observing predation generally (as with lions or tigers, who, so far as we know, lack the same degree of cognitive sophistication that crows possess), but specifically when we project ourselves onto a being recognized as possessing qualities of consciousness similar to humans. The fact that the reaction intensifies upon learning about crow intelligence demonstrates that this is indeed empathetic projection as Stein describes it—the attempt to understand the emotional state of another being that is perceived as partially sharing our type. 6: Conclusion and Final Thoughts Stein’s conception of empathy demonstrates remarkable versatility, enabling novel interpretations of contemporary phenomena. The framework proves particularly illuminating when applied to the empathetic disconnect between neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals, revealing how differences in cognitive type create fundamental barriers to mutual understanding. Similarly, her theory provides a means to analyze the unsettling nature of empathy toward highly intelligent non-human animals like crows, whose consciousness bears disconcerting similarities to human awareness. Perhaps most notably, Stein’s conception offers a fresh interpretative lens for the uncanny valley—a decades-old problem that continues to challenge researchers. Despite the significant philosophical depth and avenues for exploration evident in Stein’s work, her ideas remain relatively underexplored compared to those of her contemporaries. Her framework on empathy offers substantive approaches to understanding the complexities of intersubjective experience across diverse domains—from neurodiversity to animal cognition to human-machine interaction. This broad applicability reveals the conceptual richness and contemporary relevance of her philosophical thought. The application of Stein’s empathy theory to the uncanny valley highlights several areas warranting further investigation. Questions remain regarding the precise mechanisms by which objects transition from being perceived as dead, to alive, to occupying the liminal space of "neither alive nor dead." Additionally, the exact threshold at which an entity becomes perceptually uncategorizable—and subsequently when it becomes re-categorizable after exiting the uncanny valley—deserves deeper examination. These inquiries represent promising directions for future philosophical investigation, demonstrating the enduring applicability of Stein’s conception of empathy to contemporary philosophical questions. ________________ Works Cited Begley, Sharon. “Brainiacs, Not Birdbrains: Crows Possess Higher Intelligence Long Thought a Primarily Human Attribute.” STAT, 24 Sept. 2020, https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/24/crows-possess-higher-intelligence-long-thought-primarily-human/. Bolton, Katrina. “Toads Fall Victim to Crows in NT.” Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 14 Sept. 2007, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-09-15/toads-fall-victim-to-crows-in-nt/670524. Bora, E., and C. Pantelis. “Meta-analysis of Social Cognition in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Comparison with Healthy Controls and Autistic Spectrum Disorder.” Psychological Medicine, vol. 46, no. 4, 2016, pp. 699–716, doi:10.1017/S0033291715002573. Cibralic, Sara, et al. “A Systematic Review of Emotion Regulation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, vol. 68, 2019, p. 101422, doi:10.1016/j.rasd.2019.101422. Martinez, S., et al. “Unraveling the Spectrum: Overlap, Distinctions, and Nuances of ADHD and ASD in Children.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 15, 2024, article 1387179, doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1387179. Masoomi, M., et al. “Emotion Recognition Deficits in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Comprehensive Meta-analysis of Accuracy and Response Time.” Frontiers in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, vol. 3, 2025, article 1520854, doi:10.3389/frcha.2024.1520854. Morellini, L., et al. “Social Cognition in Adult ADHD: A Systematic Review.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, 2022, article 940445, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.940445. Mori, Masahiro. “The Uncanny Valley.” Translated by Karl F. MacDorman and Norri Kageki. IEEE Spectrum, 12 June 2012, https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-uncanny-valley. Nijhuis, Michelle. “Friend or Foe? Crows Never Forget a Face, It Seems.” The New York Times, 25 Aug. 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html. Soler-Gutiérrez, A. M., et al. “Evidence of Emotion Dysregulation as a Core Symptom of Adult ADHD: A Systematic Review.” PLOS ONE, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280131. Stein, Edith. On the Problem of Empathy. Translated by Waltraut Stein, 3rd ed., ICS Publications, 1989. Velikonja, T., et al. “Patterns of Nonsocial and Social Cognitive Functioning in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.” JAMA Psychiatry, vol. 76, no. 2, 2019, pp. 135–151, doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.3645. ________________ [1] By “broad” emotion, I mean an emotion that is understood as belonging to a basic mental category rather than being understood by the specific emotion or emotions that an entity may be feeling. For example, one might intuitively recognize one person frowning and another person sobbing as undergoing emotions belonging to the large emotional category of “sadness,” just as a person smiling might be intuitively recognized as undergoing an emotion belonging to the large emotional category of “happiness”; the emotions are broad enough to fit multiple variations of an emotion under the same general emotional category. That aforementioned person frowning may be experiencing the specific emotion of despair over losing one’s job to a younger, less-qualified worker due to budget cuts because said company is on the verge of going bankrupt while at the same time one still needs to care for one’s dying pet, while the aforementioned person sobbing may be experiencing the specific emotion of stubbing one’s little toe extremely hard while depressed. In both cases, the exact emotion each person is experiencing almost certainly cannot be conveyed by intuitive perception, yet both fall under the broad category of “sadness” in one’s mind, because one can only intuitively understand a portion of another person’s emotions through external perception of features and actions alone. [2] This does involve a form of anthropomorphization, but it is not a conceptual error within Stein’s framework. Empathy necessarily begins from the subject’s perspective and is filtered through their own primordial cognitive framework. An individual cannot empathically project from a space outside of their own type. As such, the more an individual perceives another being as similar in type, the more that being is interpreted through the subject’s own characteristics.

Rethinking the Landscape of Guns in America Politics Previous Next By Katherine Jeng This report examines racial disparities in gun arrests, possessions, and violence, and how the criminalization of gun possession is producing mass incarceration. Gun violence is increasingly viewed as a major national problem and disproportionately impacts Black Americans. Yet current methods of reducing gun violence are failing and causing harm as gun violence continues to increase in the United States. This report analyzes two types of solutions from experts: the first type is recommendations to reform the gun industry, while the second is various gun diversion programs in cities across the United States. Furthermore, the report discusses the role of bipartisan support in gun reform policies. Lastly, this report analyzes how New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Kevin J. Bruen changed the framework for Second Amendment cases and long-standing laws. Word count: 5,684 New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that expanded the power of the Second Amendment and altered the way gun possession cases are handled. With the outcome of this case, developing gun litigation is causing debate in headlines and courts. This paper was written from May to August 2023 under the direction of Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Ph.D. (Co-Director of Research, The Sentencing Project) to understand the current climate of guns in America and what solutions advocates must seek to combat the gun epidemic. ________________ Table of Contents 1. Executive Summary 2. Racial Disparities in Gun Licensing and Possession Cases 3. The Criminalization of Gun Possession Contributes to Mass Incarceration 4. Industry Reform, Gun Diversion Programs, and Alternative Sentencing A. Gun Industry Reform 1. Repeal Gun Industry Immunity 2. Gun Seller Reform 3. Smart Guns and Gun Safety Features 4. Repeal Restrictions on Gun Trace Data B. Gun Diversion Programs and Alternative Sentencing C. Bipartisan Cooperation 5. A World Post-Bruen ________________ I. Executive Summary Jasmine Phillips lawfully owned a gun in Texas but was charged with unlicensed possession while visiting family in New York[1]. Even after her case was dismissed, she lost her custody of her child and her lease was terminated. Benjamin Prosser, who was carrying a gun for self-defense, was convicted of illegal gun possession and declared a “violent felon” by the New York penal code because he did not have a license[2]. Lastly, Sam Little was carrying a gun to protect his child when he was stopped by the police[3]. He had to drop out of classes from his associate’s program and spent eight months in jail. All three were clients of Bronx Defenders and mentioned in their amicus brief against New York’s concealed carry license law in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Kevin J. Bruen. Despite exercising their Second Amendment rights, these clients suffered immense consequences. This report examines racial disparities in gun arrests, possessions, and violence, and how the criminalization of gun possession is producing mass incarceration. Gun violence is increasingly viewed as a major national problem that disproportionately impacts Black Americans[4]. Yet current methods of reducing gun violence are failing and even causing harm as gun violence steadily increase in the United States[5]. This report analyzes two broad solutions from experts: the first is their recommendations to reform the gun industry, while the second solution involves various gun diversion programs in cities across the United States[6]. Furthermore, the report discusses how bipartisan support fits into these solutions. Lastly, this report analyzes how New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Kevin J. Bruen changed the framework for Second Amendment cases and long-standing laws. II. Racial Disparities in Gun Licensing and Possession Cases In November of 2021, the Supreme Court ruled on New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Kevin J. Bruen, a case concerning New York State's proper concealed carry law. Robert Nash and Brandon Koch were rejected from their concealed-carry applications based on their inability to provide “proper cause.”[7]. Progressive organizations like the ACLU and NAACP wrote amicus briefs in support of New York’s choice to regulate public carry, with the latter stating that “public carry restrictions remain an important feature of states and localities’ public safety regimes today.”[8]. However, Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Defender Services, and numerous other New York public defender offices wrote an opposing amicus brief stating that the denials violated the Second Amendment[9]. Citing cases like District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, the public defenders argued that the court’s precedent for firearm possession for self-defense was not the reality for their clients[10]. Before the ruling, acquiring a concealed-carry license was up to the sole discretion of the New York Police Department (NYPD). They had the ability to brand firearm possession as a crime or licensed right. The application process is often expensive and discretionary; the license costs about $400 in fees and an assessment of the “moral character” of the applicants[11]. As a result, the NYPD holds a preference for former police officers, who often get their fees waived and a “Good Guy” letter[12]. The letter is given to nearly all retiring full-duty cops, certifying that the applicant is “of good character” and able to continue carrying a gun. On the other hand, Robert Nash and Brandon Koch were denied from obtaining a license because they did not display “proper cause,” which is defined as demonstrating “a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.”[13]. With this decision, the Supreme Court could invalidate this monopoly over gun licensing. The language in New York’s penal law covers firearm-possession cases broadly, yet the consequences for these arrests are life-long. For example, if a firearm is not loaded but there is ammunition in the same area, it is considered “loaded.”[14]. If a firearm is in a car, “all persons” in the car possess it and can be charged. If a person possesses a gun without a license, then the law presumes they possessed it with “intent to use [it] unlawfully against another.”[15]. Altogether, simply owning a gun becomes a “violent felony.”[16]. Despite having a constitutional right to bear arms, the public defender’s clients face severe repercussions if charged with illegal gun possession. The ones charged are oftentimes physically threatened by police and held pretrial at Rikers[17]. As a result, many suffer from psychological trauma. Furthermore, people convicted of felony gun possession are branded as criminals and face a civil death: they may lose their jobs, custody of children, and immigration status and could face a year or more in prison[18]. Even if they avoid prison, they still suffer from damaging criminal records, legal fees, car impoundments, probation, and job loss[19]. Ultimately, with all these consequences, lawmakers have made the Second Amendment rights discriminatory towards African Americans[20]. The New York defenders stated in their brief, “Virtually all our clients whom New York prosecutes for exercising their Second Amendment right are Black or Hispanic. This is no accident. New York enacted its firearm licensing requirements to criminalize gun ownership by racial and ethnic minorities.”[21]. Despite making up only 18% of the population, Black New Yorkers make up 78% of the state’s felony gun possession cases[22]. On the other hand, white New Yorkers make up 70% of the population, but only 7% of cases[23]. In Chicago, The Marshall Project found that despite Black people making up less than a third of the population, more than 80% of people arrested for unlawful possession were Black[24]. In Houston, arrests for illegal possession jumped up 70% between 2019 and 2021, and, despite being less than 25% of the population, Black people made up more than 60% of those arrests[25]. In Cleveland, Black people accounted for nearly 90% of arrests for weapons-related charges in 2022[26]. We can see how these disparities play out in gun ownership, as white men are especially likely to be gun owners: 48% of white men say they own a gun, whereas only 24% of nonwhite men say they own a gun[27]. Only 24% of Black people report they own a gun as compared to 36% of white people[28]. In June 2022, Bruen was decided. The Supreme Court held, consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the State’s licensing requirements went against the Second and Fourteenth amendment[29]. However, it is unclear yet whether this ruling will affect racial discrimination in felony gun possession cases. In fact, the NYPD has been granting fewer gun possession licenses, leaving them pending after Bruen[30]. Furthermore, the NYPD reports that gun arrests have been at a historic high[31]. They indicated a significant increase in Queens and the Bronx, both neighborhoods with clusters of Black New Yorkers[32]. Even still, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Kevin J. Bruen and its ruling has become a catalyst for gun legislation and Second Amendment cases[33]. III. The Criminalization of Gun Possession Contributes to Mass Incarceration Not only do laws that criminalize gun possession sustain mass incarceration but they are also ineffective at reducing the number of shootings on the streets or increasing solved investigations. In 2021, 72% of firearm convictions in Illinois were for possession offenses, and the state saw a 27% increase in prison admissions for firearm possession from 2014 to 2019[34]. A The Marshall Project report found that Illinois police made over 38,000 arrests for illegal gun possession in 2022, doubling from 2010[35]. Yet The Marshall Project found that as possession arrests increased, so did shootings—but the percentage of shooting victims where someone was arrested in their case declined[36]. Similar results were seen in Philadelphia. Whereas illegal gun possession arrests shot up more than 100% from 2015 to 2020, cases prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office fell from 65% to 42%[37]. Clearance rates for fatal shootings, the percentage of cases solved by the Philadelphia Police Department, declined from 41% to 37% over the same period. Since 2010, Chicago police have failed to make an arrest in more than 8 in 10 shootings[38]. According to The Marshall Project, this may be because “investigating shootings used very different policing resources than the kinds of stops that result in gun possession arrests.”[39] Focusing on gun possession is a misplacement of police resources. Roughly $557 billion in tax money per year pays for our country’s gun violence epidemic, which is around 2.6% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product[40]. The Center for American Progress ran an analysis of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and its budget from 2013 to 2020; during this time, funding for “firearms criminal use and possession” and “combating criminal organizations” grew from 36% of the overall budget whereas funding focused on “deterring illegal firearms trafficking/violent gun crime” and “diversion of firearms from legal commerce” were at 24% and 27%, respectively, and remained stagnant[41]. Everytown for Gun Safety is critical of the economic consequences of gun violence, stating, “Instead of funding education, social services, economic redevelopment grants, and so many other vital public goods from which we all benefit, we are spending precious funds on an epidemic that brings nothing of benefit and plenty of heartbreak and shattered lives.”[42]. The Center for American Progress, on the other hand, suggests an overhaul of ATP’s spending priorities for more effective gun violence prevention[43]. The focus on gun possession is deeply linked to race. Nevertheless, the disproportionate number of arrests of Black people do little to reduce gun violence. Chief public defender of Cook County, Illinois, Sharone Mitchell, states, “Laws criminalizing gun possession not only devastate Black and brown communities; they also fail to achieve one of their primary objectives: reducing the supply of guns on our streets.”[44]. There’s no shortage of guns on illegal markets, and access to them is far too easy. The Marshall Project echoes this sentiment, writing “disproportionate arrests of Black people for gun possession don’t directly address the violence that captivates headlines and moves policy: major mass shootings in schools, stores, houses of worship and nightclubs.”[45]. Not only do Black people overwhelmingly make up gun possession arrests, but Black communities in Chicago also remain the most affected by gun violence. The majority of gun deaths are Black men ages 20-30s[46]. Black people’s life expectancy is almost 10 years shorter on average than non-Black residents due to gun violence, as well as other factors like economic and health inequities[47]. Three in ten Black adults have personally witnessed someone being shot, one-third of Black adults have a family member who was killed by a gun, and one-third of Black adults say they worry either “every day,” or “almost every day” about themselves or someone they love being a victim of gun violence (compared to one in ten white adults)[48]. One in five Black adults feels like gun-related crimes, deaths, and injuries are a “constant threat” to their local community, more than double the share among white adults (8%)[49]. The rise in gun possession arrests mirrors the larger ineffectiveness and racially unjustness of other methods of the war on gun violence like “broken windows” policing, stop-and-frisk, and the war on drugs. A lawsuit was filed in 2012 deeming stop-and-frisks as unconstitutional in 2013[50]. While this decreased recorded stop-and-frisks by over 480,000 cases, there were still 92,383 stops and 60,583 frisks of people on the street between 2014 to 2017[51]. Worse, the racial disparities in these stops and frisks persisted. Of those numbers, 81% of stops and 84% of frisks were of Black or Latino people. 38% of all the “stops” were Black and Latino men from ages 14 to 24, though they only made up 5% of the population. Although being overrepresented in these stop-and-frisks, Black and Latino people were “less likely to be found with a weapon” than others[52]. The Marshall Project’s report, which focused on over 100 interviews in Chicago, found that researchers, attorneys, and advocates often compared the United States’ current approach to gun violence to the war on drugs[53]. These tough-on-crime policies are disproportionately affecting Black communities and inflating incarceration rates[54]. Ultimately, these forms of gun control (gun possession arrests and stop-and-frisks) end up sustaining mass incarceration[55]. IV. Industry Reform, Gun Diversion Programs, and Alternative Sentencing To reduce gun violence, an exploration of alternative solutions that don't produce mass incarceration is critical. Punitive sentencing laws do little to curb gun violence, especially as sentences for gun-related offenses are more often for possession than actual acts of violence[56]. Instead, experts suggest a variety of methods. Sharone Mitchell Jr., Chief Public Defender of Cook County Illinois, recommends stemming the flow and use of guns by repealing gun industry immunity, educating gun owners on safe usage and storage, implementing targeted buybacks, prohibiting the manufacturing of assault weapons, and investing in gun violence prevention and restorative justice initiatives[57]. Everytown, Giffords, Brady United, the National Education Association, and others call for a ban on all assault weapons[58]. This memo will look at two other forms of gun policies: gun industry reform and gun diversion programs. A. Gun Industry Reform Multiple organizations like Everytown, Giffords, Center for American Progress, and The Trace have all criticized the gun industry and its special immunities[59]. Everytown suggests four recommendations to keep the gun industry accountable[60]. (1) Repeal Gun Industry Immunity The gun manufacturing industry has obtained unprecedented immunity in America[61]. In 2005, President Bush signed the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) into law, which shields gun manufacturers from liability and accountability[62]. The act prohibits plaintiffs from bringing “qualified civil liability actions” against these industry defendants who now have broad immunity from many common law tort actions[63]. However, the PLCAA also provides exceptions, including what has been called the “predicate exception.”[64]. The clause allows plaintiffs who were harmed to use civil actions against a gun industry defendant who has knowingly violated a statute of the sale or marketing of a firearm. This exception was used in Sandy Hook Elementary School’s $73 million settlement with Remington Arms Co[65]. The Connecticut Supreme Court held that one of the plaintiffs’ claims survived PLCAA’s bar. Although the case sparked hope in many against the immunity that the gun industry has, this strategy does little to open the door for more lawsuits against gun makers. The gun industry is protected not only because of PLCAA but also by state immunity laws that have been adopted in some form in 34 states[66]. Similar to PLCAA, these immunity laws shield firearm and ammunition manufacturers, sellers, and other industry members from many kinds of traditional civil lawsuits. The immunity laws prohibit or deter cities or local governments from bringing lawsuits against gun industry defendants. Not only do Arkansas, Colorado, and Indiana, have these immunity statutes, but they also have laws that include punitive provisions to force victims who attempt to file lawsuits to pay for the gun industry’s legal fees[67]. The possibility of civil litigation can incentivize industries to make their products or business practices safer. Civil litigation is proven to better protect public health and safety, but currently, the gun industry has no reason to enact changes to make guns safer. Giffords and Everytown argue that PLCAA gives the gun business special protections unlike any others, and it should be repealed. PLCAA blocks legal responsibility for manufacturers that have failed to innovate and add safety features to guns and for sellers with irresponsible sales practices that contribute to illegal firearms in our communities. Gun manufacturers and sellers should abide by the same rules as every other industry and be held accountable when its actions result in harm. Nineteen states have already begun rejecting legal immunity for the gun industry[68]. In 2002, California was the first state to repeal a gun industry immunity statute that stated: “No firearm or ammunition shall be deemed defective in design on the basis that the benefits of the product do not outweigh the risk of injury.”[69]. In 2020, Virginia also repealed their statute followed by Delaware in 2022[70]. According to Giffords, in New York, Delaware, and California, laws were passed to allow a new cause of action authorizing any person harmed by a firearm industry member who has knowingly violated a statute surrounding the sale or marketing of a firearm to file suit and seek compensation or other fair remedies in court[71]. New Jersey holds a similar law but expressly authorizes only the state Attorney General to file lawsuits in these circumstances[72]. Giffords also states New York and California also empower certain local officials to bring civil lawsuits in their jurisdictions[73]. Everytown found that in 2022, California passed SB 1327, a first-of-its-kind legislation that allows individuals to sue anyone who violates certain California firearm laws, including those who make or sell illegal assault weapons or ghost gun parts, and those who sell guns to underage buyers[74]. California also enacted the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act in July 2023, which is a firearm industry standard of conduct in the Civil Code, complete with specific obligations and prohibitions that are unquestionably about the sale and marketing of firearms[75]. Repealing gun industry immunity provides many avenues of gun control. From keeping gun sellers and manufacturers accountable, increasing public and product safety, to deterring irresponsible business practices, there are many benefits to removing these special protections. (2) Gun Seller Reform In the United States, almost all firearms are sold by licensed sellers, including the ones recovered in crimes. Gun sellers are the essential connection between manufacturers and buyers. Yet policies around gun sellers have not been updated since the 1960s. The Gun Control Act of 1968 established a federal licensing system with requirements for firearms manufacturers, importers, pawnbrokers, collectors, and sellers, but did not significantly reduce crime or gun purchases[76]. Now, over 58,000 gun sellers in the United States are regulated by an act over 55 years old[77]. Furthermore, federal law does not require sellers to conduct business on commercial premises, which, in 1998, resulted in over 56% of all sellers operating out of their homes and 11% of all sellers operating out of businesses not normally associated with a gun business (like funeral homes and auto parts stores)[78]. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the federal agency that regulates gun sellers, is underfunded and influenced by the gun industry[79]. This results in only 42% of sellers being inspected by ATF in a five-year period[80]. On the state level, only 26 states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws regulating firearms sellers[81]. Seventeen states require sellers to post and/or deliver written warnings to purchasers regarding the risks of storing firearms in a manner accessible to children. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia generally require firearms sellers to obtain a state-issued license[82]. Even fewer states require firearms sellers to utilize security measures or background checks[83]. Everytown analyzed various investigations of gun sellers and revealed a majority of investigations of gun sellers had some violations like improper inventory, failing to complete required forms, and failing to conduct background checks[84]. Increasing supervision around gun sellers and creating gun seller reform would restrict dangerous transfers of firearms. Everytown found that intrastate gun trafficking was 64% lower in places with strong gun dealer regulations and oversight[85]. There has been increasing public support for comprehensive gun seller reform[86]. Giffords recommends a legislative framework to ameliorate such issues[87]. They recommend that sellers report all firearm sales, theft or loss, and physical inventory to law enforcement. Furthermore, Giffords calls for legislation to prohibit sellers in residential areas and require background checks or licenses for firearms sellers and seller employees. Ultimately, gun seller reform should consist of updating practices, increased record keeping, training, and holding sellers accountable. (3) Smart Guns and Gun Safety Features Roughly one gun is stolen every 90 seconds every day in the U.S[88]. This amounts to approximately 380,000 stolen guns every year. These guns often fall into an underground market, where people circumvent legal regulations to acquire them. Furthermore, guns are exempt from federal consumer product safety regulations, which means no agency can investigate alleged malfunctions, set mandatory manufacturing or design standards, or recall models found to be defective[89]. Authorized-use technology, safety features, and smart gun technology can stop unsanctioned gun use and theft. Much like how your phone scans your thumb, scans your face, or requires a passcode, the technology helps ensure a gun can only be fired by an authorized user[90]. Furthermore, Everytown suggests semi-automatic handgun models should have a loaded chamber indicator to visually show if a round is in the chamber, as well as a magazine safety disconnect to help prevent the gun from being fired unintentionally. All firearms should also meet childproof standards like higher trigger resistance or multiple motions to fire the gun. Three states already have a form of this legislation in place: Massachusetts, Maryland, and California require new handgun models to have childproofing features. (4) Repeal Restrictions on Gun Trace Data The Tiahrt Amendment of 2003 prohibits the release of gun trace data to anyone other than a law enforcement agency or a prosecutor. It was added by Todd Tiahrt, who argues that it protects the anonymity of undercover officers and the confidentiality of law enforcement investigations. This amendment is supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA)[91]. However, the reality is that the amendment restricts law enforcement from investigating gun crimes and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from releasing firearm trace data or requiring gun sellers to submit inventories. Furthermore, the amendment restricts information investigators can obtain, like where a gun was purchased or who it was sold to. The FBI is also required to destroy records of approved background checks in 24 hours. The Tiahrt Amendment makes it hard for law enforcement to prosecute or solve gun crimes, and repealing these restrictions would aid in the enforcement of gun laws. Gun trace data, like gun sellers’ license revocations, are practices that could reduce the number of stolen or lost guns. Repealing this amendment has received overwhelming support. Former and longest-serving New York City Police Department (NYPD) commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times in 2007 on behalf of himself and “more than two dozen other law enforcement organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police and a bipartisan coalition of 225 mayors” to oppose the reauthorization of the Tiahrt amendment[92]. Proponents of the Tiahrt amendment argue that public release of this data is a breach of privacy and could jeopardize criminal investigations. The National Shooting Sports Foundation states that repealing this amendment could jeopardize ongoing criminal investigations, putting the lives of law enforcement, witnesses and others at risk;[93] however, Everytown states that the amendment hinders law enforcement and contends that public safety must come first[94]. In 2015, Rep. Barbara Lee introduced a bill to repeal certain aspects of these amendments. She reintroduced the bill in 2018, and again in 2021 with Senator Bob Menendez[95]. The bill would repeal the prohibition on the ATF from releasing firearm trace data, the requirement for the FBI to destroy all approved gun purchaser records within 24 hours, and the prohibition on the ATF from requiring gun sellers to submit their inventories to law enforcement[96]. Furthermore, twelve states (Oregon, California, Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey) require crime guns to be traced[97]. B. Gun Diversion Programs and Alternative Sentencing Giffords recommends gun diversion programs as an alternative sentencing option for individuals with certain gun charges[98]. Gun diversion programs have become an increasingly popular rehabilitative approach to reducing the amount of gun crime in America. These programs use a variety of strategies such as community-based violence intervention and public health models to help people on a path to incarceration to exit the criminal legal system or avoid it entirely. Evidence of the results of these programs shows promising results. Cure Violence, also known as the "Interrupters Model," involves paying and training trusted members of a community to anticipate where violence will occur and intervene before it erupts[99]. A study released in 2014 found a 31% drop in homicides and a 19% decline in shootings in two Chicago districts where Interrupters worked[100]. Another program, the Youth and Community in Partnership (YCP), is an alternative sentencing program by Kings County District Attorney’s office in Brooklyn[101]. The results show that there is a 22% lower rearrest rate for 16-24 year old participants[102]. Moreover, Operation CeaseFire is a Chicago-based violence prevention program that focuses on affecting violence with a small number of selected community members. The program was implemented beyond Chicago, reaching Boston, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. All these cities achieved reductions in gun homicide ranging from 25% to over 60%[103]. Lastly, Save Our Streets is a Brooklyn-located community-based project to address gun violence[104]. The program saw a 20% relative reduction in gun violence as the average monthly shooting rates in Crown Heights decreased by 6%, which compared to surrounding neighborhoods[105]. Giffords finds that although research supports diversion, many programs cannot demonstrate a positive impact on costs or savings because their focuses are on extremely low-level offenses[106]. The result is called net widening, where new treatments are more burdensome than some of the original consequences defendants faced. Giffords provides evidence that expanding diversion programming to felonies and more serious charges can be more effective and reduce net widening. They provide an evaluation of a Drug School program in Cook County, Illinois, that has separate tracks for individuals accused of misdemeanor and felony drug charges. Only 1% of those enrolled in felony Drug School received a jail sentence, as compared to 37% of those who did not opt for diversion[107]. Community-based violence intervention programs are growing rapidly throughout the United States and show promising results. A 2019 survey finds 55% of 220 prosecutors’ offices had diversion programming[108]. Giffords finds that diversion programs have the potential to be a proven method of reducing gun violence that does not contribute to mass incarceration. Increasing research shows that investing in and establishing these programs can allow for greater public safety. C. Bipartisan Cooperation Bipartisan cooperation is essential to address the deeply divisive issue of firearms regulation in a way that respects both individual rights and national safety. Consensus-driven policymaking is an essential way that legislation surrounding gun control is accepted and effective. The need for public safety, reducing gun violence, and stopping mass shootings must transcend party lines. Bipartisanship not only lends legitimacy to the resulting policies but also increases the likelihood of their successful implementation and enforcement. It is through the collaboration of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle that a balanced, evidence-based approach can be achieved to make our communities safer. One example of successful bipartisan cooperation is the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) that President Joe Biden signed into law on June 25, 2022[109]. Both Democratic and Republican senators worked on this bill, including Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. The Center for American Progress called it “the most significant gun violence reduction legislation in 30 years.”[110]. The BSCA prioritizes improving background checks by broadening the definition of licensed gun dealers and buyers under age 21. It furthermore increases access to mental health services, crisis intervention services, and community violence intervention programs. Lastly, it tightens criminal offenses for straw purchasing and trafficking. Lucy Sarkissian, a 19-year old gun survivor-activist, announced that one year after the BSCA passed, Colorado received more than $9 million to fund mental health care in schools and communities, support gun violence survivors, and to implement extreme risk protection orders. Although the BSCA is an amazing step in the right direction, we must continue off this momentum to continue bipartisan collaboration for gun safety[111]. V. A World Post-Bruen New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Kevin J. Bruen altered our country’s approach to Second Amendment Rights in the legal system. Bruen has overturned a New York law created in 1913 that included “good moral character” and “proper cause” as conditions to public carry, expanding Second Amendment rights to more people[112]. Before Bruen, due to the Buffalo, New York shooting on May 14, 2022, New York had been taking steps to strengthen gun control[113]. Just seventeen days before Bruen was decided, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a 10-bill legislative package that bans the sale of semiautomatic rifles to people under 21, expands the definition of a firearm, restricts the sale of body armor to specific professions, broadens the list of people who can file an Extreme Risk Protection Order, and publishes requirements for social media platforms to bolster their hateful conduct policies[114]. However, the Bruen case is already having ripple effects in other states, reversing the tide of gun control laws. California Attorney General Rob Bonta released a legal memo a day after the Bruen ruling stating that the “good cause” requirements in the California Penal Code are unconstitutional[115]. The Massachusetts Attorney General released a joint advisory with the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security to “cease enforcement of the ‘good reason’ provision of the license-to-carry statute in response to Bruen.”[116]. Maryland removed their “good and substantial reason” requirements for concealed carry[117]. Gov. Hochul signed the Concealed Carry Improvement Act into law on July 1, 2022[118]. Hawaii passed legislation to allow more people to carry concealed firearms, following similar steps as New Jersey and New York[119]. Bruen has allowed for has further stirred up new debate regarding the dismissal of federal felon-in-possession prosecutions, creating new legal inconsistencies between federal and state rulings.. In June 2023, a year after Bruen, District Judge Carlton Reeves dismissed Jessie Bullock’s criminal charges for owning a firearm despite a felony conviction in United States v. Bullock[120]. He ruled that prohibiting Bullock from owning a gun because of a conviction would violate the Second Amendment. Although Reeves is bound to the law and decision from the Supreme Court, he has been vocal about his disapproval. In October 2022, Reeves strongly criticized the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, which ruled that gun laws should depend on whether they are consistent with the “history and tradition” of restrictions in place at the time the Constitution was written[121]. He stated the Supreme Court needed a “trained historian” to help understand gun laws[122]. He cites disagreement about the Second Amendment and heavy criticism of Bruen among historians. The Washington Post states Reeves “calls the Supreme Court’s bluff on guns.”[123]. Through this ruling, it is evident that Bruen “has created quite the mess” and leads to many questions that judges now must decide[124]. As another example, Zackey Rahimi was arrested after police found a gun in his home. He was involved in five shootings and has a restraining order against him due to domestic violence. He was convicted on the grounds of the 1994 federal law that prohibits firearm possession for subjects of restraining orders. However, after Bruen, he is appealing his indictment in United States v. Rahimi. He argued that Bruen overturned the previous law and therefore his indictment is unconstitutional[125]. The case has made its way to the Supreme Court and is pending. Everytown calls the decision “extremely dangerous for women in America” and advocates for the decision to be immediately vacated or reversed[127]. Yet there’s still hope with this Supreme Court decision. The Justice Department and the Biden administration are asking the court to revoke the lower court ruling[128]. NBC News calls it the “first real test of how broadly the court’s conservative majority wants its 2022 ruling to be interpreted”, referring to Bruen[129]. Furthermore, progress on gun reform continues as some states refuse to back down from gun control because of Bruen. Connecticut’s Office of the Attorney General acknowledged Bruen and its impact on Connecticut’s gun laws but released a statement saying the office “is ready to aggressively defend Connecticut’s laws and our right to protect the safety of all our citizens.”[130]. Moreover, in July 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a constitutional amendment on gun safety. It aims to do four things: ban assault weapons, mandate background checks on gun buyers, implement a waiting period, and add a minimum purchasing age of 21. The Los Angeles Times applauds Newsom for offering something “more muscular than the typical thoughts-and-prayers response”, yet simultaneously acknowledges that this amendment would have “no chance of being adopted.”[131]. Massachusetts House Judiciary Chairman Michael Day criticized the “rogue Supreme Court” and filed a large gun reform bill in June 2023 that would help “ensure the health and safety of [Massachusetts] residents.”[132]. The bill expands the state’s Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO), otherwise known as the “Red Flag” law[133]. The law directs a person to surrender their license to carry. The bill also focuses on controlling ghost guns by requiring two essential gun parts, receivers and barrels, to be registered and have serial numbers. Furthermore, it updates the state’s concealed carry law to prohibit licensed gun owners from carrying firearms in schools, colleges, universities, government buildings, polling places, and private property[134]. The Boston Globe applauds this bill, declaring, “Making Massachusetts safer is the best we can hope for. This legislation helps get us there.”[135]. The decision of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen has fundamentally changed the constitutionality and methodology of gun laws. It has distorted historical precedent to radically expand the Second Amendment right in the face of epidemic gun violence. Ultimately, the decision compels us to ask: how effective are our current solutions to gun violence, and how must we rethink them? We are now living in a pivotal moment of gun legislation and must advocate, with bated breath, for effective gun regulation. ________________ Endnotes 1 New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 213 L. Ed. 2d 387 (2022). 2 New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen. 3 New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen. 4. Pew Research Center, “Large Majority of Americans Support Raising Minimum Age for Buying Guns to 21,” June 27, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/28/gun-violence-widely-viewed-as-a-major-and-growing-national-problem/pp_2023-06-28_gun-violence_00-04/. 5. Pew Research Center, “What the Data Says about Gun Deaths in the U.S.,” April 26, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/. 6. Everytown, “Lack of Gun Industry Accountability,” 2023, https://www.everytown.org/issues/lack-of-gun-industry-accountability/. 7. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 213 L. Ed. 2d 387 (2022). 8. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 213 L. Ed. 2d 387 (2022). 9. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 213 L. Ed. 2d 387 (2022). 10. District of Columbia v. Heller was a landmark decision where the Supreme Court found a District of Columbia law strictly regulating gun ownership to be unconstitutional. McDonald v. City of Chicago was a landmark decision where the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment requires state and local governments to respect the Second Amendment. 11. “New Application Instructions · Government Portal,” accessed August 24, 2023, https://licensing.nypdonline.org/new-app-instruction/?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1. 12. “NYPD ‘Good Guy’ Note Let Suspect Pack Heat,” accessed August 24, 2023, https://nypost.com/2006/05/18/nypd-good-guy-note-let-suspect-pack-heat/. 13. National League of Cities, “SCOTUS Strikes Down ‘Proper Cause’ Requirement to Carry a Gun in Public,” June 24, 2022, https://www.nlc.org/article/2022/06/24/scotus-strikes-down-proper-cause-requirement-to-carry-a-gun-in-public/. 14. NY Law, “Article 265 Penal Law Firearms - Dangerous Weapons,” accessed August 24, 2023, https://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article265.php. 15. NY Law, “Article 265 Penal Law Firearms - Dangerous Weapons,” accessed August 24, 2023, https://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article265.php. 16. NY Law, “Article 265 Penal Law Firearms - Dangerous Weapons,” accessed August 24, 2023, https://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article265.php. 17. Avinash Samarth, Aimee Carlisle, Christopher Smith, Michael Thomas, and Meghna Philip, "We Are Public Defenders. New York’s Gun Laws Eviscerate Our Clients’ Second Amendment Rights," SCOTUSblog, October 28, 2021, https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/10/we-are-public-defenders-new-yorks-gun-laws-eviscerate-our-clients-second-amendment-rights/. 18. Avinash Samarth, Aimee Carlisle, Christopher Smith, Michael Thomas, and Meghna Philip, "We Are Public Defenders. New York’s Gun Laws Eviscerate Our Clients’ Second Amendment Rights," SCOTUSblog, October 28, 2021, https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/10/we-are-public-defenders-new-yorks-gun-laws-eviscerate-our-clients-second-amendment-rights/. 19. Lakeidra Chavis and Geoff Hing, “5 Things to Know About the Failed War on Gun Violence,” The Marshall Project, March 23, 2023, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/03/23/gun-laws-violence-chicago-policing-what-to-know. 20. This report uses the terms Black and African American interchangeably. 21. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 213 L. Ed. 2d 387 (2022). 22. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 213 L. Ed. 2d 387 (2022). 23. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 213 L. Ed. 2d 387 (2022). 24. Lakeidra Chavis and Geoff Hing, “5 Things to Know About the Failed War on Gun Violence,” The Marshall Project, March 23, 2023, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/03/23/gun-laws-violence-chicago-policing-what-to-know. 25. Lakeidra Chavis and Geoff Hing, “5 Things to Know About the Failed War on Gun Violence,” The Marshall Project, March 23, 2023, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/03/23/gun-laws-violence-chicago-policing-what-to-know. 26. Lakeidra Chavis and Geoff Hing, “5 Things to Know About the Failed War on Gun Violence,” The Marshall Project, March 23, 2023, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/03/23/gun-laws-violence-chicago-policing-what-to-know. 27. Travis Mitchell, “The Demographics of Gun Ownership,” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project (blog), June 22, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/. 28. Travis Mitchell, “The Demographics of Gun Ownership,” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project (blog), June 22, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/. 29. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 213 L. Ed. 2d 387 (2022). 30. Gwynne Hogan and Suhail Bhat, “NYPD Granting Fewer Gun Permits After Supreme Court Ruled It Had to Grant More, Data Shows,” The City, July 23, 2023, https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/7/23/23803195/nypd-gun-permit-approvals-bruen-supreme-court-ghost. 31. “NYPD Announces Citywide Crime Statistics for June 2023.” 32. “NYPD Announces Citywide Crime Statistics for November 2022” 33. See Section V. A World Post-Bruen. 34. David E. Olson et al., “Sentences Imposed on Those Convicted of Felony Illegal Possession of a Firearm in Illinois,” 3. 35. Lakeidra Chavis and Geoff Hing, “The War on Gun Violence Has Failed. And Black Men Are Paying the Price,” The Marshall Project, March 23, 2023, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/03/23/gun-violence-possession-police-chicago. 36. 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Lawlor, Mason. “Maryland Court Follows Supreme Court’s Gun Permit Ruling: ‘Good and Substantial Reason’ Requirement Also Unconstitutional.” Law.com, August 1, 2022. https://www.law.com/2022/08/01/maryland-court-follows-supreme-courts-gun-permit-r uling-good-and-substantial-reason-requirement-also-unconstitutional/ . Lawrence Hurley. “Supreme Court Considers Recoil from Landmark Gun Rights Ruling,” June 18, 2023. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-considers-recoil-land mark-gun-rights-ruling-rcna89261 . “Legal Alert OAG 2022 02.” California Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General, February 2022. Los Angeles Times. “Editorial: Newsom Gun Amendment Is a Non-Starter, but It Still Has Value,” July 17, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-07-17/newsom-gun-amendment-non-start er . Marcus, Ruth. “A U.S. District Judge Calls the Supreme Court’s Bluff on Guns.” Washington Post , July 8, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/07/originalism-supreme-court-seco nd-amendment-reeves/ . Mass.gov. “Extreme Risk Protection Orders.” Accessed September 19, 2023. https://www.mass.gov/extreme-risk-protection-orders . McAvoy, Audrey. “Hawaii Allows More Concealed Carry after US Supreme Court Ruling but Bans Guns in Most Places.” AP News, June 3, 2023. https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-gun-control-law-concealed-carry-permit-72e5ebe107 fdea85319a4552dcb23b97 . Michela Lowry and Ashmini Kerodal. “Prosecutor-Led Diversion.” Center for Court Innovation, March 2019. Mitchell Jr., Sharone. “There’s No Second Amendment on the South Side of Chicago,” November 12, 2021. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/gun-control-supreme-court/ . 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Ed. 2d 387 (2022) NY Law. “Article 265 Penal Law Firearms - Dangerous Weapons.” Accessed August 24, 2023. https://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article265.php . “NYPD ‘Good Guy’ Note Let Suspect Pack Heat.” Accessed August 24, 2023. https://nypost.com/2006/05/18/nypd-good-guy-note-let-suspect-pack-heat/ . Pew Research Center. “Large Majority of Americans Support Raising Minimum Age for Buying Guns to 21,” June 27, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/28/gun-violence-widely-viewed-as-a-maj or-and-growing-national-problem/pp_2023-06-28_gun-violence_00-04/ . Pew Research Center. “What the Data Says about Gun Deaths in the U.S.,” April 26, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-dea ths-in-the-u-s/ . 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[R-ID. “Text - S.397 - 109th Congress (2005-2006): Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.” Legislation, October 26, 2005. 2005-02-16. http://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/397/text . “Sen. Menendez, Rep. Lee Reintroduce Bicameral Bill to End NRA-Backed Ban on Preservation, Disclosure of Gun Records.” Accessed August 24, 2023. https://www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/press/sen-menendez-rep-lee-reintroduce-b icameral-bill-to-end-nra-backed-ban-on-preservation-disclosure-of-gun-records . The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, 1 Year Later. (2023, August 10). Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-bipartisan-safer-communities-act-1-year-later/ The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. “Youth Diversion,” n.d. “The Economic Cost of Gun Violence,” July 19, 2022. https://everytownresearch.org/report/the-economic-cost-of-gun-violence/. “The Evidence of Effectiveness: Cure Violence.” Cure Violence Global, August 2022. 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A Defense of Externalist Reductive Representationalism Philosophy Previous Next by Sophia Decherney Abstract: In this paper, I will discuss each of the primary solutions to the character question and argue for the External Reductionist Representationalism view. I will then defend the view against the objection that it does not provide an adequate account of pain. 1. Introduction to the Character Question A central question in the field of Perception, referred to as the character question, asks, “What constitutes the character of experience?”.[1] In other words, what does it mean to experience something? There are many answers to this question, each with its own problems and advantages. In this paper, I will discuss each of the primary solutions to the character question and argue for External Reductive Representationalism. First, I will explain the Sense Datum View, largely regarded as an inevitable conclusion from the Act/Object Assumption, an assumption that states that there must be an object of perception. I will explain how the Sense Datum View presents significant problems, such as perceptual imprecision and failure to explain major metaphysical questions. I will then shift to the Representationalist View, currently the predominant view amongst philosophers of perception, and explain how it answers some of the questions that the Sense Datum View faces. Lastly, I will explain two different options within Representationalism–Internal Non-Reductive Representationalism and External Reductive Representationalism–and prove that while the External Reductivist Representationalism view leaves some questions unanswered, it provides the most compelling answer to the character question.[2] 2. Answer One: The Sense Datum View 2.1. The Sense Datum Answer to the Character Question The Sense Datum view answers the character question by saying that to have a sensory encounter with a particular character is simply to experience Sense Data. Sense Data are non-physical objects of perception created by the brain, the spatial-temporal properties of which roughly match those of physical objects in the world. Imagine you and your sibling are both looking at an apple. According to the Sense Datum View, when you look at the apple, you do not see the apple. Instead, your brain creates an image of an apple, a Sense Datum of an apple, and projects it, similarly to how an Oculus Rift or a projector produces an image and makes it seem as if the image exists in the world. Having explained the Sense Datum View, I will now explain the arguments in favor of the view before moving onto the arguments against it. 2.2. The Argument for Sense Datum The argument for the Sense Datum View, the Argument from Hallucination, starts with an assumption called the Act/Object Assumption. This assumption states that having an experience with a particular character is to experience that object, and further, that all objects of perception must be either physical or non-physical. The assumption is apparent on an intuitive level: it is natural to think that what you perceive is an object of your perception. In fact, when people speak about perceptual experiences they use objects as well, saying, “I saw it” or “I heard that.” For example, even in a hallucination, we say that we “saw a purple flower,” whether or not the object (purple flower) physically is there or just a mental picture. The next step in the Argument from Hallucination is to say that since the objects of hallucinations clearly exist, but do not exist in the external environment, they must be non-physical. To generalize from that statement, if hallucinations exist as non-physical objects of perception, all perceptions must be non-physical like hallucinations because there is no reason to believe that hallucination would be different from any other perceptual experience. These non-physical objects are named sense data. 2.3. The Arguments Against Sense Datum There are two significant issues with the Sense Datum View. The first is that sense data are perceptually imprecise. When you look at an object, other objects also exist in the periphery of your vision. According to the Sense Datum View, these objects are sense data as well. Yet, unlike the sense data in the central part of your vision, the periphery objects are inexact, maybe fuzzy. Certainly, you would not be able to represent them precisely if asked to draw or describe them. So what kind of objects are these sense data that your brain creates imprecisely? The first option is that they are, by nature, metaphysically imprecise non-physical objects. Yet, it is intuitive that there could not be such an object, since an object, by definition, should have defined features even if it is non-physical. A second option on the nature of the above object is that peripheral sense data is metaphysically precise, so your brain makes incomplete sense data based on the information it has. It is as if the brain, lacking information about the object, therefore represents it as imprecise. This explanation, however, makes little sense, because it asks us to believe that our brains, having gone through the process of creating precise sense data, then fail to pick an accurate color, shape, etc., for the object. If the brain is able to create sense data without reliance on the outside world, there is no reason for it to create sense data that are physically imprecise. In this way, neither answer to the problem of perceptual imprecision succeeds in resolving the issue of peripheral impression of sense data. The second problem with the Sense Datum View is the problem of the phenomenology of how a sense datum is created and projected. Sense data theorists claim that the object of experience is irreducible beyond sense data. Yet, they cannot explain how the sense data are made, how they exist non-physically, and how their brains can project them with such accuracy. Do sense data exist outside of physical space in their own mental realm? If so, how do they come to be projected in the physical realm? This mysteriously irreducible process suggests that the Sense Datum View is not useful in answering the character question. Although, according to the Sense Datum View, to have an experience with a specific character is simply to experience Sense Data, the failure to explain how these mysterious sense data operate continually brings us back to the original question: what constitutes the character of experience? The Representationalist View will answer these questions by explaining perceptual imprecision and by positing a more precise description of the metaphysics of perception. 3. Answer Two: Representationalism 3.1. The Representationalist Answer to the Character Question The Representationalist View answers the character question by arguing that to engage with an experience is to represent an array of perceptual properties experimentally. But what does this seemingly circular definition really mean? To understand this view, take the case of hallucination. The Representationalist View also utilizes the “seems gambit” in the case of a hallucination. The “seems gambit” means that if you hallucinate an apple, you do not actually perceive an apple object – physical or nonphysical; instead, it just seems as if there is such an object. Having no need for an object of perception is a significant departure from the Act/Object Assumption, which states that such an object must exist in actuality. In experience, according to the Representationalist View, it seems that an object is there, but in actuality, it is merely a representation that your brain creates. 3.2. Argument for Representationalism The main argument for Representationalism is that it does a better job than the Sense Datum View in explaining major problems in perception. First of all, it currently offers the most plausible explanation of the external directedness and internal dependence problem. The external directedness and internal dependence problem is the intuition that perception relates both to things out in the world and to our own internal processing of perceptions. Take the example of noise: it is intuitive that noise is simultaneously something that we process internally, and something we believe is also out there in space. Representationalism incorporates this intuition nicely by saying that although there are physical noises out in the world, your experience of hearing is just for your brain to make it seem to you (represent the noise) that there is noise in the space around you. Representation also avoids the problem of perceptual imprecision. If your brain merely represents sensory experiences, it makes sense that, when the level of detection varies, so will the level of precision and completeness. To comprehend this view, it is helpful to picture representational experience as language. Language, when heard, conveys the understanding and meaning of what the speaker intends to say. Yet it is not in itself the meaning. For example, the word “apple” represents an apple, but while it may trigger the idea of an apple, it is not itself an apple. Experiential representation also explains the problem of the object’s location with which, as we saw, the Sense Datum View struggled. In Representationalism there is no need for a non-physical or mental realm because these representations are existence-neutral, meaning that in order for the brain to represent something, there need not exist anything for it to represent. While the actual nature of these mental representations may still be mysterious, in these ways, Representationalism far exceeds the former views in answering critical questions with precision. 3.3. Questions for Representationalism The main question for Representationalism is how much representations rely on internal and external factors. In other words, to what extent does representationalism require there to be something in the world for the brain to detect? How much of representationalism is reliant on internal directedness as opposed to the external environment? For example, is it that colors are real and that our brains are detecting and representing them, or is it that objects are colorless and the brain merely represents them with color properties? How reductive is experienced representation?[3] These questions will be answered differently by different views within representationalism. I will consider two options. The first option is the Internal Non-Reductionist View of Representation, which will favor internal dependence. According to this view, color does not exist in the world but rather is only represented by our brains. This view faces many of the same problems as the Sense Datum View. The second option is the Reductionist Externalist View, which grounds representations in the external world. For example, this view would have us believe that our brain is representing real colors that exist in the world. but the image we see only “seems” to be those colors. I will explain the Internalist Non-Reductive View first, and compare it to the Sense Datum View, explaining the similar problems it faces. 4. Non-Reductive Representationalism 4.1. Non-Reductive Representationalism’s Answer to the Character Question If you remember the Sense Datum View mentioned above,you have already grasped the basic intuition about Internalist Non Reductive Representationalism. Internalist Non-Reductive Representationalism holds that sensible qualities like color or smell are only internally dependent on experientially represented experiences; they are not “out there” in the world. However, Internalist Non-Reductive Representationalism does not hold that experience can be further reduced to any physical object or process. To experience the color red is simply to experientially represent the color red, and further, there is no property of red attached to any object in the real world parallel to this experience. This understanding of the location of sensible properties contrasts the reductive internal views that claim to further describe the process of experientially representing or the external views that rely on the physical external world to influence experiential representation. Although the proponents of Externalist Non-Reductive Representationalism agree that representing red depends on neural processes in the brain, they also believe that this representation cannot be reduced to those properties. 4.2. Arguments for Internist Non-reductive Representationalism Unlike the Sense Datum View, the Internist Non-Reductive Representationalism avoids problems of perceptual imprecision. Like all representationalist views, Internalist Non Reductive Representationalism not only explains but also predates such cases by maintaining that the brain needs adequate information for representations. It also avoids non-physical objects such as sense data, therefore circumventing questions concerning location and space. Furthermore, Internalist Non Reductive Representationalism offers a strong account of internal dependence. Lastly, Internist Non-Reductive Representationalism predicts the weak correlation between external stimuli and internal response, as found through numerous neurological studies. 4.3. Problems with Internist Non-Reductive Representationalism Many of the same phenomenological issues associated with the Sense Datum View are also found in Internalist Non reductive Representationalism. The non-reductive part of the view makes the view phenomenologically unclear. If experience cannot be reduced further, how do those representations come to be? What are they based on? Why are they so similar to other people’s representations? How are they projected on the world? This phenomenological confusion makes the view impractical as an explanation of experience, resulting in more questions than answers. Because of its non-reductive nature, Internist Non-Reductive Representationalism gives very little new information about the nature of experience, maintaining that experience is experientially representing and does not in itself explain what experience consists of. In this way, Internist Non-Reductive Representationalism fails to be useful in answering the character question. The view also gives a concerning answer to the external directedness part of the external directedness and internal dependence problem by failing to give an account of how the physical world affects perception. The view claims that experientially representing red is distinct from any physical conception of “red”. However, they believe that experience depends on the physical. This complexity leads to an almost dualist account of perception. I will now turn to the second option within Representationalism, External Reductive Representationalism, which will preserve the benefits of Representationalism while at the same time addressing the concerns discussed above. 5. Externalist Reductive Representationalism 5.1. Externalist Reductive Representationalism’s Answer to the Character Question Externalist Reductive Representationalism believes that representations are grounded in the external. To get an intuitive feel for this view, picture a thermometer. A thermometer represents weather, yet the thermometer is not the weather; it is only representing its own detection measure of the external factor of weather. A thermometer that is designed to measure temperatures up to 90 degrees will represent 100 degrees as 90 just as a brain lacking proper information will experientially represent a hallucination. In this way, Externalist Reductive Representationalism demystifies the relationship between experientially representing the external world and the external world itself. The brain detects sensible properties such as color that exist in the world and experientially represents them with the information it possesses. 5.2. Arguments for Eternalist Reductive Representationalism Externalist Reductive Representationalism does the perfect job of resolving the internal dependence and external directedness problem. It is essentially a view that believes experience is both internally and externally grounded. It also explains experience in physical terms thereby de-mystifying the nature of experience representation. Like all reductionist views it is able to avoid the Act/Object assumption and the problems that follow with that assumption like perceptual imprecision, location, etc. Moreover, Externalist Reductive Representationalism predicts and explains hallucination very well by utilizing the “seems” gambit and by giving an account of how hallucinations come to be represented. Lastly, Externalist Reductive Representationalism offers an account of how evolution affects perception by explaining that an evolutionary history is a prerequisite for experience, just as syntax is a prerequisite for language. So it makes evolutionary sense that this perceptual account would be a selected trait. Cognitive American psychologist Donald Hoffman, suggests that, since our limited experiential representation of reality can only represent so much information at a time, the brain chooses the information that has seemed evolutionarily most necessary (The Case Against Reality). Therefore, our perception focuses us on essential experiential representations, allowing the brain to process its environment quickly and decisively. 6. A Major Objection to Externalist Reductive Representationalism A major problem for Externalist Reductive Representationalism is the problem of how to treat pain. It has been proven that there is a weak correlation between external causes of pain and our experience of it internally. According to Externalist Reductive Representationalism, when the amount of pain increases externally the experience of that pain should increase with relative correlation. This example is similar to that of the thermometer: if the temperature increases outside, the thermometer should show a consistent increase as well. However, studies show that there is a very weak correlation between the levels of external sources of pain and the internal experience of pain. Stevens et al. found in their study on the correlation between the intensity of electric shocks and the internal experience of pain that it “seems to be universally true on prosthetic continua, the category scale is concave downward when plotted against the scale of subjective magnitude” (Stevens 330). In other words, for each of their three methods of determining internal pain intensity (appearance of intensity, neuron response, and self-reporting), the correlation, while positive, was weak between increased external intensity and internal experience of pain (this will be referred to as the weak internal good external correlation problem). However, the correlation between neuron response and reported pain intensity is strong, suggesting that the experience of experientially representing pain is entirely internal (Stevens 335). Another problem for Externalist Reductive Representationalism relating to pain has to do with exceptions to the traditional model of pain. For example, phantom pains (pains that appear where a missing body part should be) appear to have no external source yet it is hard to deny that they are pain experiences. In these cases the Internal Physical Model or the Internal Non Reductionist Representational View works better because not only does it predict a weak correlation between external and internal experiences of pain, but it also accounts for pain based on mental states that have nothing at all to do with the outside world (Hill 80). The folk intuition about pain also supports this theory. Almost all statements about pain locate it in the body rather than in something “out there” that we experience. One would say “I have a headache” or “I am in pain” rather than “I am experiencing a pain that is in the door stubbing my toe.” To understand this difference take the example of color. When talking about color our intuition is that it is located in the object we are experiencing, i.e., “I see that brown door.” By contrast, pain appears to us to be only within our own experience of it, i.e., we say “my toe is in pain” not “that door that stubbed my toe is painful.” This intuition goes against the Externalist Reductive Representationalism view of pain, which always seeks to locate pain in the external world. 7. Addressing the Problem of Pain in Externalist Reductive Representationalism 7.1. Solution One A simple answer is that pains not grounded in reality (such as phantom pains) are merely hallucinations. This resembles the case of the thermometer which, because it only goes to up to 90 degrees, represents 100 degrees as 90 degrees. While we do not know exactly why the hallucination exists, that is more an issue of the causation of pain than the perception of pain experienced. Thus it is not a requirement of Externalist Reductive Representationalism to answer the question of the cause of pain-related hallucinations. As explained earlier, Externalist Reductive Representationalism offers a great explanation of hallucination, so it could be objected that phantom pains are not only explained, but also predicted by the Externalist Reductive Representationalist View. It would make no sense that every other sense – sight, sound, etc.– would experience representation and only pain would be required to respond solely to external stimuli. I think that this objection offers a clear defense of Externalist Reductive Representationalism with regard to pains not caused by external stimuli. However, it does not address the weak correlation between internal experience and outside stimuli in cases where there are outside stimuli present. To address this issue I will lay out the three main ways that Externalist Reductive Representationalists explain weak correlation and evaluate each answer based on its compelling evidence and ability to fully set aside the concerns about pain. 7.2. Solution Two: Representing our Own Detection of Pain One answer to the weak internal good external correlation problem is that when we externally represent pain, we are detecting not external sources of pain, but instead, our own physical response to pain. For example, when we feel a migraine for which there is no external source. what we are actually experientially representing is the physical response of our brain or spinal cord. That would explain, and even predict, the strong correlation observed between neuron response to stimuli and reported pain levels. One positive result of locating the detection of pain in our body is that the result manages to find a physical source of pain. For those who are attracted to the Externalist Reductive Representationalist View because of its physicality, this is a very compelling resolution. Another positive outcome is that this answer neatly predicts the correlation problem. The negative outcome of this view is that, while the view does locate a physical source of pain, it does not locate an external source of pain as the spinal cord and brain are still internal. Without an external source of pain, the relationship between hallucination and normal cases remains ambiguous, since phantom pain can still be located in the spinal cords and neurons. Additionally, the answer suggests that pain could not exist independently of human perception of it. It is one of the tenets of the Externalist Reductive Representationalist View that sensory qualities, such as color, shape, etc., pre-dated humanity and continue to exist whether or not they are perceived. In conclusion, this solution, while compelling, may demand a large phenomenological shift in the Externalist Reductive Representationalist View. 7.3. Solution Three: Normal/Abnormal A third answer to the problem of pain is that all pain is partially an illusion. That would mean that, while pain exists externally out in the world, our brain always tracks it a little incorrectly and thus all experienced representations of pain are partially illusions. This does fit the evidence, since experience of pain has a positive but not perfect correlation to external sources. The positive of this explanation is that it manages to locate pain entirely externally. The negative is that Externalist Reductive Representationalism does not want to normalize illusion as an answer for the other senses. Differences in the experiential representation of color, for instance, between color-blind and non-color-blind individuals, is not explained this way. So the explanation forces Externalist Reductive Representationalism into a dualist view in which pain is treated differently than every other perceptive quality. Unless a compelling reason is found why pain should operate differently, it seems unnecessary to resort to a dualist view and makes the Externalist Reductive Representationalist View less compelling overall because it is no longer a good view for simplicity concerns. 7.4. Solution Four: Divorcing Externalist Reductive Representationalism from the Folk Perception of Pain Unlike other types of sensory perception the common or “folk” perception of pain is that to experience pain just is to feel pain (Hill 73). Significantly, we do not believe this about any other sense. For all other senses we distinguish between appearance and reality. For example, an apple might seem green to a regular person and red to a color-blind person. However, we would never say that the apple is red just because the color blind person perceived it as such. Nor would we equate seeing a hallucination of a red flower with actually seeing a red flower. Nor would we say that we failed to see the color of the apple just because there are animals that can see it in more colors than us. Thus, in all cases besides pain, we can successfully utilize the “seems” gambit to understand that appearance versus reality exists in regards to sensory perception. This solution to the problem of pain can be stated in this way: it is not that our view of perception does not fit with pain, but rather that our view of pain is incorrect. This solution is strongly supported by the failure of any view to completely account for pain. Christopher Hill in his paper “Fault Lines in the Perception of Pain” suggests redefining pain using the “seems” gambit. In his view, all pain is based on some sort of external bodily disturbance. If one feels a pain such as a phantom pain with no apparent cause then one is not actually in pain, they just seem like they are what their brain is detecting and experientially representing. In the same way, if you see a red flower where no flower exists,you are simply hallucinating the red flower. This solution also addresses opposite examples in which external causes of pain are present but the person does not feel pain. For example, when one has surgery but is under anesthetics, it seems to one as if they are not in pain but in reality they are experiencing external causes of pain. The solution would remain true for cases such as pain asymbolia, a condition where one is unable to feel pain. This answer would be a projectivist account of pain since pain is still found in external bodily disturbance. This account of pain still leaves some questions unanswered, such as the way that these hallucinations of pain work. However, this is a problem best served by neuroscience and essentially does not detract from the view since Externalist Reductive Representationalism already has an account of hallucination. 7.5. Evaluation In my view, the fourth and final answer is the best answer to the question of pain. It separates accounts of pain described by the hallucination and normal/abnormal answers, while explaining how this view does not create a dualist account and, in fact, works the same way as experientially representing the sense of sight. It also predicts the weak correlation between pain and external sources by eliminating internal experience as the criteria for pain intensity. In these ways, it solves the problem of pain for Externalist Reductive Representationalism while leaving open the possibility of further research on the nature of the relationship between external disturbance and pain. 8. Why is Externalist Reductive Representationalism the Most Compelling View? Unlike the Sense Datum view, Externalist Reductive Representationalism does not need any assumptions like the Act/Object assumption, does not require any objects that are metaphysically imprecise, and has a clear internal and external relationship. In contrast to the Internalist Non-Reductive Representationalism the Sense Datum View, Exterlist Reductive Representationalism’s phenomenology is not mysterious and it is an externally grounded view. The Externalist Reductive Representationalism successfully reduces the nature of perceptive experiences, answering the character question, and giving an account of the external directedness and internal dependence problem. For these reasons, although there are still research questions, the balance of considerations is strongly in favor of Externalist Reductive Representationalism’s view of perception. References Coghill, Robert, et al. “Pain Intensity Processing Within the Human Brain: A Bilateral, Distributed Mechanism.” National Institutes of Health, vol. 82, 1999. Cutter, Brian, and Michael Tye. “Tracking Representationalism and the Painfulness of Pain.” Philosophical Issues, vol. 21, 2011. Hills, Christopher S. “Fault Lines in Familiar Concepts of Pain.” Brown University, 2022. Stevens, S.S., et al. “A Scale of Apparent Intensity of Electric Shock.” Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 56, no. 4, 1958. Hoffman, Donald. Case against Reality: Why Evolution Hides the Truth from Our Eyes. W W Norton, 2021. ________________ [1] Character meaning the ways in which objects appear to you. [2] There are two other main views of perception not represented in this paper: Naive Realism and the Internal Physical state view. Naive Realism is not represented because it fails to be a unified view. It is reliant on sense data as an explanation of hallucination so therefore any objection to the Sense Datum View also holds for Naive Realism. The Internal Physical View will be briefly mentioned in response to Representationalism but quickly dismissed because it provides no account of external directedness. [3] Reductive meaning how much can the experience be further broken down in more basic processes.

Are Wage Offers Coercive? Philosophy Previous Next By kilin Tang In “Coercive Wage Offers,” David Zimmerman argues that wage offers are inherently coercive in a capitalist society. In doing so, he rejects the view of coercion as a moral concept assessed in terms of a “baseline set by a morally required course of events.”[1] He argues that any definition of coercion must explain why coercion results in unfreedom and is thus prima facie wrong. However, for the moral definition of coercion, attempts to justify coercion as wrong via utilitarianism or Kantianism ultimately rely on the non-moral to explain why coercion is prima facie wrong.[2] To address this concern, Zimmerman constructs a non-moral definition of coercion. His non-moral definition is different in that, when certain circumstances are met, offers, in addition to threats, are considered coercive. Zimmerman then utilizes this new definition of coercion to argue that wage offers in a capitalist society satisfy said conditions and are thus coercive. This paper seeks to evaluate the strength of both Zimmerman’s non-moral definition of coercion in and of itself as well as his ultimate argument that wage offers are coercive. I argue that Zimmerman’s definition of coercion dilutes the significance of the term, is too ambiguous to be practical, and overly depends upon the preferences of the victim. I then contend that under Zimmerman’s own definition, wage offers are not definitively coercive. I argue that capitalists as individuals do not necessarily actively prevent workers from receiving higher wages, and I point out that Zimmerman’s argument relies upon the unsubstantiated premise that workers strongly prefer a socialist alternative to the current capitalist state. Zimmerman proposes a framework to understand coercion. Consider an example of 2 people, A and Q, where A is the aggressor and Q is the victim.[3] When A has given an offer to Q, the situations that Q finds himself in can be broken down into three different types: the “pre-proposal situation,” the “proposal situation,” and the “alternative pre-proposal situation.”[4] The pre-proposal situation describes Q’s situation before a proposal by A has been offered to Q, the proposal situation describes Q’s situation at the time A has offered a proposal to Q, and the alternative pre-proposal situation describes any situation before a proposal by A has been offered to Q that is different from the pre-proposal situation. Importantly, Zimmerman limits all alternative pre-proposal situations to those that are historically, technologically, and economically feasible.[5] Using this framework, Zimmerman defines coercion as follows: offers from A to Q are coercive when A “actively prevents Q from being in the alternative pre-proposal situation Q strongly prefers.”[6] Zimmerman proposes that for A to “actively prevent” Q from being in the pre-proposal situation, A must satisfy the “prevention condition.”[7] The prevention condition is satisfied when “Q would have enjoyed his highly preferred pre-proposal situation but for the obstacles [A] erects.”[8] In other words, to be considered coercive, it is required for A to erect obstacles that are necessary to prevent Q from enjoying his highly preferred pre-proposal situation. Zimmerman offers an example to elucidate this definition. Consider two separate cases. In the first case, A kidnaps Q and places him on an island where A’s factory is located. The next day, A offers Q a genuine proposal to work at A’s factory for an extremely low wage or otherwise starve. In the second case, Q washes ashore on an island on which B owns a factory. B sees Q on the island and offers Q the same genuine proposal—to work at B’s factory for an extremely low wage or otherwise starve. According to Zimmerman, both offers are exploitative, but only the offer in the first case is coercive. Similarly to A, B has offered Q an extremely low wage. However, B has not satisfied the prevention condition: B has not erected any obstacles that would prevent Q from being in the pre-proposal situation Q strongly prefers, which is to not be on the island in the first place. It is only A who kidnaps Q and puts him on a remote island. In doing so, A erected an obstacle that prevented Q from being in his strongly preferred situation of not being on the island. With the prevention condition satisfied, A’s subsequent offer to work for an extremely low wage is defined as coercive.[9] Utilizing his non-moral definition of coercion, Zimmerman argues that wage offers in a capitalist society are coercive. He writes that “capitalists prevent workers from having the pre-proposal situation(s) they strongly prefer.”[10] Zimmerman contends that workers (Q) strongly prefer either of two pre-proposal situations: higher wage levels and a genuine alternative to current capitalist structures. First, Zimmerman argues that capitalists (A) attempt to actively prevent wage level increases by erecting numerous obstacles: union-busting, advocating for “right-to-work” legislation, and threatening to move overseas. Capitalists also resist attempts to move to alternative capitalist structures by refusing to invest in any opportunities that could create capitalist alternatives.[11] Second, Zimmerman contends that workers generally prefer various types of cooperative and communal enterprises over capitalist structures. As an example, Zimmerman points to a conglomerate that refuses to sell ownership of a steel plant to a group of workers and instead lets the plant sit unused.[12] He reckons that ownership of a steel plant by a group of workers could result in a socialist alternative in which there is “meaningful workers’ control of the workplace and the firm”: a balance of social planning and investment, a sensible mix of human planning and market, and an “emphasis on the fulfillment of human need rather than private enrichment.”[13] For the purposes of his argument, Zimmerman assumes that such a socialist state is feasible, and presents it as a genuine alternative to capitalism.[14] Importantly, Zimmerman notes that whether simply not providing the necessary resources to facilitate the emergence of a non-capitalist alternative economy counts as an “active prevention” of workers receiving higher wages is a question up for debate. He thus rests his claim upon a conditional statement: “if this kind of discretionary control of capital resources counts as preventing the emergence of an alternative non-capitalist pre-proposal situation, then one condition for the coerciveness of capitalist wage proposals is satisfied.”[15] Thus, when capitalists actively prevent both wage level increases and socialist structures from emerging, both actions independently prevent workers from achieving their pre-proposal situations and therefore are considered coercive. Here, I provide three critiques of Zimmerman’s non-moral definition of coercion in and of itself. First, it is unclear how to determine when the prevention condition is satisfied. What is an obstacle? Can we reasonably know if the obstacles erected by A are what prevented Q from enjoying Q’s highly preferred pre-proposal situation in most situations? Second, Zimmerman’s definition of coercion dilutes the significance of the term by defining unimportant situations as coercive. Suppose Q strongly prefers to receive a fist bump from C. However, let us presume C does whatever A tells him to do. Before Q asks for a fist bump from C, A tells C to never offer a fist bump to Q. This is exactly what happens: When Q asks for a fist bump from C, C denies Q’s request because A told him not to. A, who is present for this interaction, offers to fist bump Q instead. Q, who would prefer receiving a fist-bump from A than no fist-bump at all, ends up deciding to fist bump A. In this example, Q has been coerced by A, per Zimmerman’s definition of coercion. Q has moved from the pre-proposal situation (getting no fist bump) to a proposal situation (fist bumping A). However, A has actively prevented Q from being in the alternative pre-proposal situation Q strongly prefers (fist bumping C). Despite Q strongly preferring a fist bump from C, it seems disingenuous to argue that Q has been coerced by A, given how unimportant Q receiving a fist bump is relative to other far more serious examples of coercion. Let us use Zimmerman’s own example as a reference: A kidnaps Q and puts him on an island before offering him an extremely low wage or letting him starve. To admit that Q being unable to fist bump one person or another and Q having to work for an extremely low wage or starve are both examples of coercion dilutes the significance of the term. This is because the inclusion of everyday interactions to be classified as coercive increases the frequency with which one encounters coercion in various aspects of their lives, resulting in an overuse of the term. This may desensitize people to the concept of coercion, leading society to potentially underestimate the seriousness of significant coercive acts and fail to recognize more significant coercive situations, such as ones involving the threat or use of force. In other words, labeling less significant, or even insignificant, situations as coercion may lead people to view genuinely serious situations—such as Q having to choose between two choices that are life-or-death—less seriously. Thus, even if Zimmerman is correct that wage offers should be classified as coercive, the decreased signification and dilution of the term—given that coercion is now everywhere around us—can lead to a state of complacency, preventing genuine efforts to transition society from a capitalist to a non-capitalist state. Third, Zimmerman’s definition of coercion is too heavily dependent on the account of what Q strongly prefers. Zimmerman holds that it is “the victim's preference which determines which pre-proposal situation determines the status of the proposal itself, and it is the frustration of this preference which makes acquiescence to the proposal a case of unfreedom.”[16] This is what underlies any account of coercion and is what constitutes the foundation for Zimmerman’s own definition of coercion: Q must strongly prefer not to be in either the proposal or pre-proposal situation, but rather the alternative pre-proposal situation. Importantly, this means that whether something is defined as coercion relies heavily upon the preferences of the Q, the victim. Yet this gives rise to questions regarding the reliability of victim preferences, and on a fundamental level, a clear understanding of what our preferences are as human beings. Take the following example: When someone asks what you want for dinner, do you know for certain what you want? What if you wanted McDonalds for dinner at the time of ordering, but when the food arrives an hour later, you now strongly desire Burger King? As humans, do we truly know what our preferences are? If not, how does that impact our ability to understand coercion? Zimmerman’s reliance on human preferences as a means for evaluating coercive acts thus gives rise to complicated debates about human preference within moral philosophy and philosophy of action that I will not delve into further here. On a practical note, Zimmerman’s definition can lead to counterintuitive results that I believe Zimmerman would not deem coercive. Consider a case where A and Q voluntarily live on an island and are foraging for food. Without food, both A and Q will starve. A and Q stumble upon two types of berries on the island: white berries and black berries. Let us presume that consumption of the white berries is fatal, while consumption of the black berries is safe and nutritious. Q, fascinated by the color of the white berries, strongly desires to eat the white berries. A, however, is knowledgeable about berries and warns Q that eating the white berries would be fatal. A suggests instead to Q to eat the black berries, telling Q that the black ones are safe and nutritious. Yet Q does not believe A and still strongly desires to eat the white berries. However, since the sun is setting, A and Q mutually agree to go back to their living quarters and pick the berries tomorrow. A, who is very fond of Q, does not want Q to die from eating the white berries. Therefore, in the morning, before Q is awake, A decides to pick all the white berries and throw them into the ocean. When A and Q go berry picking in the afternoon, Q is extremely upset, given that there are no more white berries on the island. In an effort to console Q, A offers to pick the black berries for Q to eat. Q realizes that eating the black berries is better than starving, and begrudgingly decides to take A’s offer. By Zimmerman’s account, Q is being coerced by A. Q has moved from the pre-proposal situation (starving) to the proposal situation (eating black berries), but would much rather be in the alternative pre-proposal situation (eating white berries). If not for A’s actions of throwing the white berries into the ocean, Q would likely have picked and eaten the white berries: A has erected an obstacle that has actively prevented Q from being in the alternative pre-proposal condition of eating white berries that Q strongly desires. Yet from a practical standpoint, A has effectively saved Q from death. More generally, one can think of many situations in which Q’s strongly held preferences would be actively harmful to Q: not wearing a seatbelt while driving or drinking alcohol as a minor are a few examples. Therefore, Zimmerman’s overreliance on the victim’s preferences in establishing a non-moral definition of coercion fails to be completely realistic, practical, and applicable to the real world. Utilizing his definition of coercion, Zimmerman’s argument that wage offers are coercive falls short in three ways. First, Zimmerman’s argument relies on the assumption that all businesspeople who are offering wages to workers have engaged in some kind of union-busting, advocating for “right-to-work” legislation, and the like. This is certainly not always the case—there are plenty of small business owners and local mom-and-pop shops who have never engaged in such activities. These business owners, while still operating within a capitalist structure, often do attempt to pay fair wages, provide good benefits, and protect their workers. The critique Zimmerman presents seems to fundamentally critique the system of capitalism itself rather than the individuals who, voluntarily or involuntarily, participate in the system. In other words, it may be wrong to accuse individuals of coercion given the larger structure of capitalism at work, which motivates and encourages businesspeople to engage in what Zimmerman deems as coercive acts. Regardless, under Zimmerman’s own terms, wage offers within our capitalist society cannot be considered coercive if the select businesspeople offering those wages have not erected any sort of obstacle to their workers’ acquisition of higher wages. Second, I argue that wage offers do not fulfill the prevention condition. This is because Zimmerman has taken a drastic step in expanding A from being one person to a collective group of people without properly examining its implications. Here, I denote A’ to mean when A, the aggressor, is composed of a collective group of people. Zimmerman asserts that for the prevention condition to be satisfied, actions and policies taken by A’ must involve “collective activity, coordinated in one degree or another.”[17] However, Zimmerman also concedes that he does not know how much coordination of collective activity is required for the prevention condition to be satisfied.[18] Without a clear framework to determine what satisfies the prevention condition, it is difficult to assess whether wage offers are coercive. With that in mind, we can take Zimmerman’s analysis a step further. It is not readily apparent whether all individual members of A’ (the capitalists) have each “actively prevented” Q from his pre-proposal situation. Suppose A’ is composed of 2 individual people X and Y, who each own businesses, respectively. Both collectively agree that to decrease wage offers, they will both lobby for “right-to-work” legislation in their state. X donates $1 million dollars for the cause, while Y only donates $100. The “right-to-work” legislation gets passed, thereby undermining unionized attempts to negotiate higher wages. Was it necessary for all $1,000,100 to have been donated to cause the legislation to be passed? It is difficult to know—there are many factors that affect the passage of legislation. Let us suppose that only $500,000 was necessary for the legislation to pass. The practical effect of Y donating to the cause is null—whether or not Y chooses to donate would not have altered whether the right-to-work legislation would pass or not. Is Y still engaging in coercion when he offers wages to his workers? To argue that Y is engaging in coercion is dubious given that Y’s donation was not necessary per se for the “right-to-work” legislation to pass. I find it hard to believe that Y actively erected an obstacle (the passage of such legislation) that prevents higher wages when Y’s actions practically had zero effect on the presence of that obstacle. If so, one would have to bite the bullet and argue that Y has engaged in coercion in the event that Y donated one dollar or even one cent to right-to-work lobbying. If not, then the prevention condition is not satisfied. But to argue that Y is not engaging in coercion for that reason makes it difficult to ascertain when any capitalist can be implicated in coercion. Suppose that A’ is composed of ten business owners, all of whom collectively coordinate to each donate $100,010 to pass right-to-work legislation. No individual donation was necessary to pass the right-to-work legislation. Yet a collective effort was still required. Therefore, it is unclear whether, after successfully lobbying for right-to-work legislation, each of the ten business owners individually engage in coercion when offering wages to their workers. Zimmerman’s unclear understanding of what the prevention condition entails is further complicated by what I deem to be an important distinction between prevention and non-participation. Zimmerman himself points out that not investing resources into alternative structures of capitalism may not necessarily be the same as actively preventing the alternative structure from emerging.[19] It would be odd to argue that just because a person decides not to donate food to a hungry person that it is tantamount to coercion because they have actively erected an obstacle that prevents a hungry person from acquiring a meal.[20] Rather, the person is neither making it easier nor more difficult for the hungry person to acquire a meal. Under this lens, the act of non-participation should rather be seen as neutral in nature rather than as an active act, and therefore cannot satisfy the prevention condition with respect to not investing in alternatives to capitalist structures. Both examples presented give rise to a fundamental question: what is the relationship between the concept of coercion, individual behavior, and group behavior? Aside from being uncertain about the requirement for coordination in satisfying the prevention condition, Zimmerman provides no insight in regard to this question. Second, Zimmerman’s argument that wage offers are coercive relies on the critical assumption that workers prefer a socialist alternative to capitalism. He writes that whether capitalist wage offers are coercive “depends on whether an alternative pre-proposal situation is feasible which is sufficiently better than the terms of the actual wage offer and which capitalists prevent workers from having.”[21] Yet whether a socialist alternative is sufficiently better than the current capitalist framework is not technically relevant to whether wage offers are coercive. Recall that Zimmerman defines offers from A to Q to be coercive when A “actively prevents Q from being in the alternative pre-proposal situation Q strongly prefers.”[22] Thus, what is relevant in Zimmerman’s understanding of coercion is whether workers strongly prefer a socialist alternative to capitalism. Prima facie evidence seems to indicate the opposite: a 2022 Pew Research Center poll found that 57% of American workers view capitalism favorably, while only 36% of American workers view socialism favorably.[23] That being said, Zimmerman’s version of a “genuine state of socialism” is likely different from what Americans perceive of socialism in a Pew poll. How can we know for certain whether workers prefer a socialist over a capitalist state if they have only experienced the latter and not the former? What happens if some workers prefer a socialist state one day but a capitalist state the next? All that said, a notable caveat to Zimmerman’s argument is that it is conditional upon the fact that American workers strongly prefer a socialist state over the current capitalist state. Overall, Zimmerman fails to justify wage offers as coercive under his own non-moral definition of coercion. His definition is too ambiguous to be practical, significantly dilutes the meaning of coercion, and overly relies upon the victim’s preferences. Zimmerman must also clarify how the prevention condition can be satisfied when A consists of more than one person. Most notably, Zimmerman’s claim that wage offers are only coercive is conditional upon the premise that workers strongly prefer a capitalist alternative. It is unclear if workers do, considering a longstanding history of socialism being cast as evil for restricting people’s freedoms. This makes it difficult for a genuine socialist state to ever be adequately considered and achieved. Works Cited "Modest Declines in Positive Views of 'Socialism' and 'Capitalism' in U.S." Pew Research Center. Last modified September 19, 2022. Accessed May 5, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/09/19/modest-declines-in-positive-views-of-socialism-and-capitalism-in-u-s/. Zimmerman, David. "Coercive Wage Offers." Philosophy & Public Affairs 10, no. 22 (1981): 121-45. Accessed May 5, 2023. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2264975. ________________ [1] Zimmerman, “Coercive Wage Offers,” 126. [2] Zimmerman, 130. [3] For consistency’s sake, I will use A and Q throughout the paper. Note that Zimmerman uses the letters P and Q in this example. [4] Ibid, 132. [5] Ibid, 132. [6] Ibid, 133. [7] Ibid, 136. [8] Ibid. [9] Ibid, 135. [10] Ibid, 143. [11] Ibid. [12] Ibid, 143-144. [13] Ibid, 142. [14] Ibid, 142. Note that Zimmerman presents three versions of socialist states as genuine alternatives to capitalism. [15] Ibid. [16] Ibid, 129. Emphasis added. [17] Ibid, 143. [18] Ibid, 146. [19] Ibid 144. [20] Whether or not that person should donate food to the hungry person all things considered is an entirely separate question. [21] Ibid, 140. [22] Ibid, 133. Italics added. [23] Pew Research Center, “Modest Declines in Positive Views of ‘Socialism’ and ‘Capitalism’ in U.S.”

Varieties of Capitalism and Bank Bailout Designs: Differing Strategic Tilts Economics Previous Next BY Amber Abdul On September 15, 2008, the US-based investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, signaling the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis, caused by the collapse of the US housing market. This collapse was triggered by a sudden drop in housing prices and the value-decline of real estate assets held by investment banks. As the value of these real estate assets plummeted, it left many homeowners owing more on their mortgages than their homes were worth. This made it challenging for homeowners to refinance or sell their properties, resulting in increased mortgage-payment delinquencies, which rippled out into the larger economy. As investment banks such as JP Morgan Chase, Lloyds, and BNP Paribas began to show signs of failure, governments around the world drew up comprehensive bailout plans. Despite the bailouts, the harms caused by the global financial crisis of 2008 were significant, exposing the weakness of governments, banking sectors, and their complementary institutions, regardless of their capitalist characteristics. In the wake of the crisis, there was a reemergence in the academic literature of the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) approach to understanding capitalism in different countries. Pioneered by Peter A. Hall and David Soskice in 2001, this approach seeks to understand how capitalist economies differ across countries, categorizing the economies based on their organization structure and the level of government coordination present.[1] Hall and Soskice identify two capitalist typologies: liberal market economies (LMEs) and coordinated market economies (CMEs). In LMEs, the government takes a more laissez-faire approach to oversight of the private sector, allowing markets to facilitate coordination among economic actors. Governments and firms in CMEs, however, rely more heavily on non-market relationships, such as information networks, to make agreements rather than relying on the market to coordinate economic actions.[2] CMEs are by no means command economies, but governments in CMEs are far more likely than LME governments to use targeted interventions and intersectoral planning, creating cooperation between businesses and labor. Britain and the United States are widely considered LMEs, whereas Germany is considered a typical CME.[3] The VoC approach is crucial because it highlights the diversity in economic and institutional structures across nations. Through this, it sheds light on the adaptation of economic models to specific national contexts, of which the 2008 financial crisis is one of many. Because the global financial crisis of 2008 affected all countries regardless of their capitalist typology, many scholars began to doubt the VoC framework’s ability to accurately predict the effects of economic crises. However, this paper argues that VoC-predicted institutional frameworks can help predict how countries were affected by the crisis insofar as they reflect how countries created their bailout plans. This paper seeks to analyze how and to what extent the VoC framework influences bailout design. It also hopes to reintroduce the framework into the literature surrounding the global financial crisis. The paper will begin with a literature review to understand the current scholarly attitudes towards the VoC typology in the context of the crisis. The paper will then delve into the case studies of the United States, Britain, and France. These case studies will introduce nuance to how LMEs are defined, shed light on state-coordinated market economies (SMEs) which will later be introduced by the paper Schmidt (2012), provide a brief understanding of CMEs, and illustrate how these categorizations play out in the real world. This paper will conclude with thoughts about the VoC framework and its relationship to financial institutional structures and bailout methods. Literature Review on the VoC Framework and Brief of Bank Bailout Games In general, scholars believe the VoC framework is unhelpful in analyzing national responses to the 2008 financial crisis. Regini (2014) argues that the VoC framework falls short in describing the national structures in which firms fail, showing a gap between how structural characteristics might influence a national response. Given the different institutional arrangements that the VoC model defines, the surrounding literature is divided on whether government institutions, such as formal rules and structures, or power resources, such as lobbying, corporations, and other informal relationships between the public and private sector, explain the variation in national responses.[4] This debate is important to the bank bailout case, as there exists a two-way relationship between government and banks: banks have lobbying power which can constrain the institutional power of governments, and government officials who have passed through the revolving door can tap into their former Wall Street relationships. Returning to the VoC framework, while the particular type of capitalism a country practiced may not predict crisis response, the crisis opened the possibility of unpredictable forms of institutional reorganization.[5] Though the VoC framework lacks explanation for this reorganization scheme, a deeper analysis can improve the framework by assessing how professional networks shape economic and government behavior within different capitalist systems. The VoC framework must account for the new institutional arrangements the crisis produced as well as recognize the importance of power resources in regards to possible lobbying groups, businesses, and other bodies that can influence government policy. Exploring the relationship between VoC and bailout methods may answer the question of which analytical method is more powerful. Scholars largely agree that the VoC framework does not place enough importance on the power resources and government institutional debate. However, there is some disagreement about whether the government institutional approach or power resources approach is more effective. Drahokoupil and Myant (2010) prioritize the power resources section of the debate, whereas Howell (2015) finds a deeper analysis of institutions to be more convincing in the context of financial crises. Drahokoupil and Myant (2010) argue that the VoC literature understates the importance of the state’s developmental capacity, stability of the financial system, and separation of politics and business.[6] Howell, arguing that government institutions primarily determine bailout methods, identifies the European Union as a market-coordinating institution.[7] Howell posits that EU regulations restrict the bank bailout methods its member nations are able to employ, leading, often, to coordinated actions among member states. These scholars thus continue the power resources and institutional debate but begin to open avenues where bank bailout method analysis can be used to better the VoC framework analysis. Two papers seek to discuss this tension between domestic and international obligations. Welch (2011) identifies strain that was caused by the European Commission’s desire to form an EU-wide response despite most EU nations wanting to individually stabilize their banking systems rather than focus on the EU at large.[8] Swagel (2015) finds a similar tension in the US, where differing institutional, policymaker and corporate interests contributed to a delayed response to the crisis.[9] Analyzing diverging incentives and institutional allegiances can help strengthen the VoC framework. Such diversity can constrain bank bailout methods as it affects the dialogue between the banking and governmental sector. Bank bailout methods shed light on both and can thus be used to strengthen the VoC framework. Works such as Schmidt (2012) try to combine the institutional and power resources analysis through the consideration of a new addition to the VoC framework: the state-influenced market economies (SMEs). SMEs are countries where the government takes on a large role in the involvement and direction of the economy through centralized-decision making and regulations.[10] SMEs exist, in effect, somewhere between CMEs and command economies, though they remain primarily liberal and capitalist. In contrast, CMEs foster cooperative relationships with corporations and government while LMEs prioritize flexible labor markets and market competition. The financial crisis of 2008 was a notable instance where free markets and minimal government intervention were not optimal. The crisis forced governments to be involved in the direction of their economies and intervene in the day-to-day operations of private sector businesses in a way they may not have previously, demonstrating that countries do not have “set” VoC typologies, but may find it valuable to switch between typologies during major crises. Hindmoor and McConnell (2015), however, argue that many regulators and institutions in LMEs, which had historically solved economic problems by relying on free markets, were blinded by their faith in market forces, leading to divided responses to the financial crisis.[11] Hindmoor and McConnell contend that good responses depended on quality government-delivered solutions rather than firm-delivered ones, but that this division prevented the decisive response necessary to mitigate the crisis. Like Schmidt, Hindmoor and McConnell argue that, in order to best respond during the 2008 financial crisis, LMEs needed to, in effect, temporarily become SMEs, using the state far to influence the market far more than had been previously done. Overall, however, the literature finds that the VoC framework must work to improve its government, institutional, and power resource analysis to explain response patterns to the financial crisis. When crafting bank bailouts, government officials must navigate a minefield of obstacles, including contagion effects, coordination games both domestically and abroad, and moral hazard. Possibly the most important of these concerns is the contagion effect, where the actions taken in one nation affect other nations, especially given the interconnectedness of the global economy. Because it increased the perception that policies implemented in one nation might clash with the policies implemented in another, the 2008 financial crisis caused experts to increasingly believe that more coordination for crisis management between countries was needed.[12] This concern was especially relevant in the highly connected European Union (EU), which placed rules on the laws member nations could enact, although still giving its member nations a substantial degree of freedom. This forced EU countries to seriously consider the potentially negative impact, such as the propagation of economic instability, their policies have on their neighbors, often greatly restricting what bailout policies a country can implement.[13] This was not seen in the US, where bailout design was merely a federal issue. Moral hazard is the most commonly cited argument against bailouts. In this case, moral hazard manifests as potential encouragement for reckless behavior since investment banks would be supported or rescued in times of failure. Governments needed to strike a balance between intervening in the short term (i.e. bailing out banks to mitigate the impact of the crisis) and managing long term risks (i.e. that generous bailouts would lead banks, assuming more bailouts would come in the event of another crisis, to adopt riskier policy).[14] The United States Case: A Corporate Advisor and a Temporary SME 1. The United States Political and Institutional Environment The 2008 financial crisis in the US raised questions on how the bailout design would be constructed given its LME structure. Many scholars assumed that, because it tended to enact laissez-faire policy, the US would choose to uphold current market conditions as much as possible, with intervention consisting only of aid designed to create liquidity for businesses. In the US, firms have opportunities to invest fluid capital in search of higher returns and acquire liquid assets.[15] The structure of financial markets in LMEs links a firm’s profitability to its access to capital, even in recessions.[16] This is because firms in flexible labor markets, such as in the US, are able to lay off workers when access to capital is limited. Flexible labor markets are a common characteristic of LMEs because these kinds of economies typically have less stringent employee protections and wages decided at the firm level rather than through collective bargaining, unlike their CME and SME counterparts. In the US, institutions are influenced by powerful lobbyists and their fragmented nature makes it hard to coordinate. The institutional design of the US banking sector consists of many small banks, with a few major investment banks such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs dominating the sector.[17] Figure 5.1 shows a clear trend of increasing consolidation of these major investment banks. In 2008, the first year of the financial crisis, fewer than 50 banks, with assets totaling over $350 billion, failed. In subsequent years, more, smaller banks, with a combined $250 billion in assets, failed. The financial crisis in the US thus first hit the largest investment banks and spread to the rest of the economy. Major investment banks were the most vulnerable early in the crisis, suggesting that policy designed to prevent big banks from failing might stop a crisis before it ever begins. This vulnerability can be predicted by the LME typology because it ties access to highly mobile capital to firm profitability. LMEs prefer highly mobile capital due to their emphasis on market-driven mechanisms that attract individual investors and investment banks. During this crisis, declining asset values and mortgage defaults restricted the mobility of capital, impacting investment banks who were heavily reliant on these assets. Larger investment banks, despite having greater access to capital, were more impacted due to their higher exposure to high-risk mortgage-backed securities, amplifying their vulnerability compared to smaller banks. Because LMEs tend to encourage investments in these riskier but more profitable and mobile securities, the VoC typology may indicate which banks of the economy were most vulnerable, which can point to a bailout design crafted to aid such banks. Crucially, accepting aid from the government often comes with added regulations and oversight, which is not in the best interest of investment banks – especially those that have not failed. This is a characteristic present in the US as well as other LMEs. As previously stated, the US has uniquely strong special interests and lobbying groups. Powerful and large contributors to the economy such as investment banks play a larger role than the government in determining policy towards the markets, with their interests being represented by such lobbying groups. It is thus expected that healthy investment banks will exercise their political power to influence government intervention in order to avoid regulations. This is because a healthy bank would not need the bailout and thereby would not want to be restricted by the government. Such action would likely create a bailout design with a sort of “opt out” option, or a threshold that a bank reaches where they can opt out. Fragmentation of government institutions also contributed to the crafting of a bailout design. Leading the crisis response were the US Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Feeling the tremors of the crisis as early as August 2007, these institutions relied on tried-and-tested tools of monetary policy and regulatory discretion.[18] The US’ initial response was thus one of status quo. Even after regulators began to realize intervention was necessary to limit the damage caused by the crisis, the tools available to them were limited by legal [and political?] constraints, with the Treasury often having to rely on the Fed’s emergency authority rather than directing policy itself.[19] While this fragmentation is primarily a result of the historical development of the roles of the Treasury and the Fed, it is important to note the specific influence that large investment banks can wield over the design of bailout strategies. The influence of large investment banks is a characteristic feature of LMEs. This highlights how the VoC may indeed retain relevance, especially when examining the specific dynamics within LMEs related to the influence of major financial institutions on bailout policies. Bailout design must consider differing bank wants, institutional fragmentation, and the dialogue between the governmental and banking sectors. 2. Early Bailout Schemes In March 2008, the collapse of Bear Stearns marked the first bailout of the financial crisis.[20] The failure worried policymakers because of the bank's interconnectedness with other financial firms had the potential to create a domino effect across the financial system.18 This fear of additional failures arose out of the prevailing ideology of “too big to fail,” which refers to the notion that some financial firms are so large and of such systematic importance that their failure would severely damage the economy, compelling the government to rescue them. The failure of a large investment bank would greatly damage the economy due to the outsized role they play in hiring, lending, and reputability of credit. A failure of such a bank would usher a larger scale of unemployment and the freezing of credit markets as banks would be hesitant to lend to one another. The bailout design for Bear Stearns involved minimal government funding and the presence of a major private buyer, JP Morgan. The Fed financed Bear Stearns’ illiquid assets, forced Bear Stearns shareholders to take large losses, and left JP Morgan to acquire Bear Stearns while the Fed took only $1 billion in losses.17 This bailout method was clearly crafted in a manner expected of an LME. It assumed a smaller role for government intervention, and benefited another large investment bank. In addition, JP Morgan was incentivized to acquire Bear Stearns to expand the scope and size of its company. Although the Fed financed Bear Stearns’ illiquid assets, this bailout method was primarily based around non-government actors and largely followed the predictions set out by the US’ LME typology of the government relying on an acquisition as opposed to a liquidity injection. However, the initial financing of Bear Stearns’ illiquid assets showed the beginnings of the US government acting as an SME. The Lehman Brothers’ collapse in September 2008 provided the impetus for the second major government bailout. This collapse is especially noteworthy because Lehman Brothers was a more international bank, with a sizable U.K. arm containing 5,500 employees.[21] This bailout design, unlike that of Bear Stearns, did not follow traditional LME predictions. Rather, its bailout design allowed for Lehman’s collapse by the government actively denying Lehman’s acquisition by other investment banks. The decision to not bail them out can be largely explained by public opinion. The public took interest in the transparency of government bank bailout policy and accountability of investment banks. Facing immense amounts of public pressure to ensure this accountability, and prevent the moral hazard of continuously bailing out banks, policymakers took a stricter approach to markets.[22] The Lehman Brothers’ collapse is a noteworthy example of the institutional power of government superseding the power of major investment banks, such as Barclays, who signaled initial interest in buying, but was only permitted to buy after government approval after a fire sale held by Lehman Brothers.[23] It also signaled the point where government institutions became significantly more involved in bailout design, and thus when the US temporarily exhibited SME characteristics despite traditionally being regarded as an LME. 3. The Troubled Asset Relief Program As failures mounted, the US government moved to create a general bailout design. The government hoped to be widely cooperative and general in the services it provided. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a Treasury Department initiative that began after the 2008 financial crisis, required the participation of all major banks, including healthy ones.[24] TARP provided insurance for up to $700 billion in troubled assets to banks.[25] The program also placed caps on corporate compensation, which is compensation given to senior management and executives of a company. This plan required the participation of healthy banks because it helped avoid the perception that the banks in the program were especially unstable.[26] Facing pressure from the Treasury, the largest banks, such as Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Wells Fargo, agreed to accept a total of $125 billion worth of TARP assistance.[27] This pressured acceptance of aid shows that the government assumed an SME-like role: it heavily influenced the decisions made by the top banks. This coordination, though happening due to pressure, is also reminiscent of the expected action of CMEs. In addition, the fact that banks were forced to participate in TARP shows that healthy banks such as JP Morgan and Wells Fargo were unable to exercise their political capital to negotiate themselves out of accepting government aid. Overall, this represents the increasing directive of the government and the fluidity of the US VoC typology during dire crises. Ultimately, the goal of these bailout designs and of TARP was to restore investors’ confidence in financial markets. The US stayed true to its goal of returning to the status quo of self-sufficient markets, but the government understood it had to increase its role and thus act as an SME in order to achieve this goal. What this raises for the VoC literature is the idea that a country’s VoC typology is not stagnant and can change given the presence of an extreme strain on either government or economy. This is especially true of LMEs, as the VoC literature assumes them to be one-dimensional due to their presumed heavy reliance on markets. There must be an understanding that LMEs are multidimensional, in that their tools to stabilize crises can involve temporarily switching to other VoC typologies such as SMEs. Bank bailouts in the United States serve as evidence of the fluidity of VoC typologies. The United Kingdom Case: An “Intrusive” Temporary SME 1. The United Kingdom’s Political and Banking Environment The United Kingdom, with one of the largest banking sectors in Europe, had major exposure to the United States’ financial crisis. The beginning of the financial crisis in the UK is widely considered to be Northern Rock’s request for financial support from the Bank of England. After being publicized by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), news of the request caused a £1 billion bank run on Northern Rock.[28] Although an LME with the goal of returning to the market status quo, the UK’s response deviated greatly from the US’ response. This is primarily because the media beat the government in informing the media of the crisis.[29] Because of this media publicization, the UK suffered from a more politically salient lack of market trust than the US. This forced the government to take a greater role from the start to stave off this stigmatization. While suffering from the typical problems faced by an LME such as institutional coordination, the UK uniquely had to craft a bailout plan that wrested control from the media and appeased public sentiments. As a member state of the European Union, the UK had to create a bailout plan within the constraint of the European Commission’s (EC) guidelines. Article 87(1) EC states that “any aid granted by a Member State or through state resources [that] distorts or threatens to distort competition [is] incompatible with the common market.”[30] Two things are to be gleaned from such language: that a member state must have its bailout package approved by the EC and that this package must be compatible with the ”common market.” Unlike the US, the UK had an added legal constraint of creating a bailout package that did not benefit itself at the expense of other member states. Article 87 (3) (b) EC defines common market compatibility as aid that “remedies a serious disturbance in the economy of the member state” and must “be applied restrictively and must tackle a disturbance in the entire economy of a member state.”[31] Based on the rules given by the EC, the UK had to craft a bailout package that limited contagion effects to other member states, encompassed all main economic problems, and had measures that offset the distortions in competition. The UK had to balance two different objectives: that of wresting control of public sentiments from the media and appeasing a larger, sovereign body, the EC. Insight can also be gleaned from statements made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the chief financial official in the UK, and the Prime Minister. The Chancellor of the Exchequer during the crisis was Alistair Darling, whose early rhetoric capitalized on the UK’s EU membership and its economic relationship with the US. Darling placed blame for the crisis on outside actors such as the US and the EU’s financial institutions, rather than the British government itself.[32] This lack of accountability crafted a press that was highly critical of Darling and the Labour Government, placing blame on globalization and British financial regulation.[33] Interestingly, Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s response echoed one of cooperation: ”the global crisis required a global solution, [to increase] international cooperation to regulate global capital flow.”[34] Given Brown’s rhetoric, being a member of the EU caused an ideology that was in support of a sort of global “bailout plan” between states. This rhetoric also indicates that the UK government was interested in pushing the narrative that they were not responsible for the crisis. This support is likely because EU states are used to policy that supersedes the national level. Overall, however, the UK was beholden to restrictions imposed by a supranational organization, whereas the US only answered to its own market and governmental structures. Thus, the UK suffered more from political constraints than the US. Darling and Brown’s strategy of basing their rhetoric on globalization is based in fact. The UK’s banking sector is one of the most globalized of all major capitalist economies.[35] Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC and many others are headquartered in London’s “Square Mile,” where over 550 international banks and 170 global securities houses conduct their services.[36] From 2007–2008, there was an increase in foreign involvement in the banking sector from 14% to 19% of the UK's total banking assets.[37] The UK’s banking sector was more globalized than the US’ banking sector, which had large investment banks that mainly conducted their services within the US. However, the UK’s banking sector was also highly concentrated, with 5 banks making up 76.8%–79.1% of total banking assets from 2007–2008.[38] The size of the banking sector increased from $4,895.3 billion in total assets to $5,299.6 billion from 2007–2008.[39] There is a clear trend with the UK that is not seen in the US: in the early stages of the crisis, the UK experienced an expanding banking sector with an increase in foreign involvement. This indicates the slight delay of the contagion effects, where UK investment banks were likely still investing in assets very early into the announcement of the US’ Lehman Brothers failure. This also points to the idea that the UK government, along with the banks, initially undermined the crisis, relying on Darling’s belief in the market’s self-correcting power and the Bank of England’s (BOE) ability to stabilize the banking sector with its interest rate changes. The UK was on a similar bailout trajectory to the US; however, their bailout design had to be uniquely crafted to protect its large, EU constrained banking sector. 2. Early Responses and the Credit Guarantee Scheme The UK’s crisis response first deviated from the US’ with the government takeover of banks Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley (B&B). In LMEs, adjustment to economic changes is almost always company-led, with the government acting as a shareholder, giving aid in the form of loans, grants and relatively low levels of equity acquisition.[40] However, in the cases of these banks, both were nationalized via equity transfer. Equity transfer is the internal transfer of shares to existing shareholders, in this case the government, whereas equity acquisition is when an external actor buys a large stake in a company. This was the first time the British government had taken control of a bank since 1984.[41] Recall that the US allowed JP Morgan to acquire Bear Stearns and allowed Lehman Brothers to collapse early in the crisis. While the UK government made attempts to find large buyers for Northern Rock and B&B, a lack of trust in banks and desire to punish incompetent managers caused the nationalization schemes.[42] Nationalization of banks are punishments to managers because they are constrained by government interests and are paid less than if they were managing a private bank. While both acted like SMEs, the US stayed closer to LME principles, intervening in the crisis far less than the UK. The US took an “advisor” SME approach, merely acting as an arbiter between large investment banks, their CEOs, and potential buyers. The UK, however, took on an “intrusive” SME approach, seeking to nationalize rather than letting the banks collapse. This intrusive approach grew even more pronounced with the UK’s announcement of the Credit Guarantee Scheme. The Credit Guarantee Scheme had measures that intended to provide banks with sufficient funds to help firms restructure their finances and maintain lending in the medium term.[43] This bailout plan had measures that amounted to £250 billion, with debt issuance making up £100 billion[44] and a bank recapitalization fund making up £50 billion.[45] Steep, risk-based fees were also imposed on banks that opted into the plan.20 Participating institutions also faced prohibitions on the level of advertising.38 The government could also direct a firm’s payment of dividends on their shares to stockholders.[46] Finally, one of the most controversial components of the plan was the fact that the government cut bonus payments from banks that were fully or partly nationalized[47] and the Treasury could appoint new corporate board members when it saw fit.[48] This component was not popular among bank executives, and some banks likely chose not to opt into the plan due to these controls alone. The UK government was thus far more intrusive in the firms that joined the plan than the US was with the TARP. 3. Comparing the UK and the US While the UK bailout plan was far stricter and more selective than the US bailout plan, it still displayed some LME characteristics, namely having the government act as a shareholder and imposing restrictions in order to maximize its shareholder profits, although in the end the government did nationalize the companies. However, the US and UK differ in their levels of intrusiveness. While the US pressured cooperation, the extent to which it involved itself in the corporate governance of the bank was very limited. The US government merely “advised” the CEOs of each bank. The UK government, however, directly involved itself in corporate governance, even going as far as to reappoint members to the board of directors. The UK was thus an intrusive temporary SME, whereas the US was an advisory temporary SME. The US government did not have the absolute authority over bank CEOs like the UK government did, hence the “advised” label. It is widely understood that LMEs tend to stay out of corporate governance. The differences in responses between the US and UK lie in a separate but adjacent topic: central bank independence (CBI). Central bank independence indicates the level of influence politicians have on central bank policy and leadership. A 1998 paper by William Bernhard discusses the differences between the US’ and UK’s CBI. The US has a highly independent central bank, whereas the UK is characterized by a more dependent banking system. Despite both being LMEs, the US has a mean independence value of .73, whereas the UK has a mean value of .42.[49] These values are calculated on a scale of 0 to 1, with 0 indicating a low CBI and 1 indicating high CBI. These values were computed through averaging indices developed by other authors.[50] There is a relationship between CBI and the limits a government sets for itself when choosing to intervene in a firm‘s corporate governance. Having heavy oversight for central bank board appointments likely indicates that changing a corporate board is accepted as a viable solution for poor firm governance. This is because a lower CBI indicates that the government has more political influence over its central bank, thereby making the central bank with shorter-term policy goals due to changing administrations, and a greater inclination for government and the central bank to coordinate on policies. Low CBI shows that a government is more willing to intervene in the setting up of the boards of its financial institutions, thereby indicating a greater level of comfort in intervening in the corporate board of a failing firm if necessary. For example, a dependent central bank shares similar policy objectives with the government, tying efficient policy outcomes with government reputation.[51] This aligns with the Credit Guarantee Scheme’s bonus limit imposed on nationalized banks, as the performance of these banks laid under the government’s direction. This relationship underscores how a lower CBI corresponds with increased government involvement and oversight in bailout efforts. Although both LMEs followed a similar SME-like strategy, the US and UK fundamentally differ in their level of “intrusiveness” in participating firms. It is true that both have unique characteristics, such as the US-based firm’s lobbying power and the UK’s early politicization of the crisis and their membership in the EU. However, their divergent responses point to the deeper institutional underpinnings, such as the regulatory frameworks and governance of each economy. With greater institutional understanding, the VoC literature can identify subtle differences between LMEs. The French Case: The Maverick 1. Dirigisme and Post-Dirigisme France, also with one of the largest banking sectors in the EU, stands as a peculiar case amongst the traditional LMEs. The paper Schmidt (2012) France an SME, with its statecraft being called “dirigiste,” in which firms exercise autonomy in their respective sectors but heed the advice and direction provided by the state.[52] Unlike its LME counterparts, however, France did not behave like an SME, which would be expected when crafting a bailout design. Instead, it relied on an informal network of cooperation and negotiations between the nation’s top banking CEOs. France, with its oligarchic capitalist system and negotiated bailout design, stands alone. Beginning in the 1980s, the banking sector underwent radical privatization and internationalization. The three largest French banks, Société Générale, Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP), and (now dissolved) Crédit Lyonnais were privatized from 1987–2002.[53] These privatizations were designed to create national champions: large banks that would come to dominate the French financial sector and gain a global scale. This move aligned with a larger strategy to strengthen France’s financial sector. In 1988, legislation was passed to create confidence in the new financial technique of securitization, which condenses financial assets such as mortgages and loans into a single security, which was promoted due to new solvency guidelines given by the EC.[54] Other countries, like the UK, opted for a more laissez-faire approach when introducing securitization, meaning that the government allowed firms to operate with more freedom with this new financial instrument and did not immediately opt for explicit legislation.[55] In addition, the government’s behavior towards its financial sector points to the idea that EU membership forced economies to become more competitive. This competitiveness is fostered because it attracts more investors seeking diverse investment opportunities, lower borrowing costs, and increased liquidity in economies. This idea of competition appears to be in line with the LME model. Throughout the 1980s and into the early 2000s, the French state took on a leading role in transforming its banking sector to be internationally competitive, thereby diminishing the French government’s role in its economy. Dirigisme had temporarily come to an end. This “diminishment,” however, was not to be taken at face-value. Where nationalization fell, informal contacts and cross-bank cooperation between firm and government took its place. In this post-dirigisme world, government officials and powerful bankers were not distinct groups.[56] These large private banks were controlled by an elite coming out of public service.[57] Consequently, there was a close and established relationship between the political and banking elites. Of the cases explored in this paper, only the US comes close to such intertwining relationships between government and banks through its powerful lobbying system. However, the difference between the US and France lies in the kind of relationships that were cultivated. In the US, these relationships were cultivated by lobbyists, intermediaries who leverage their governmental connections to further the interests of the organization they represent (typically a corporation). In France, however, these relationships were fortified by shared education and experiences, creating an “informal consortium” between the banking sector and government.[58] The government thus maintained a level of dirigisme through friendships. It is through these friendships that the government gained an “advising” nature similar to the US. However, given the unique friendship ties between the government and banking sector, its bank bailout system was informally decided through trust and agreements rather than by direct legislation. 2. Bailouts and the Structure of the French Banking Sector Relative to other countries, France did not have significant exposure to the financial crisis. Compared to the UK and the US, France’s value-added of non-financial companies grew by 0.5%, where these had contracted in the UK and US by 2.1% and 1.7% respectively.[59] This is because the French government cultivated a balanced business model of banking, while the UK and US relied more heavily on their investment banking institutions. The fiscal policy of the 1980s–2000s produced a retail-focused economy, a highly saturated domestic retail market, and low-foreign penetration into the French banking sector.[60] France has a significantly smaller investment banking sector compared to the US and UK, saving them from major exposure to toxic assets. However, the liberalization policies of the 1980s–2000s increased equity investments from 29.1% to 79% among banks.[61] Equity market capitalization, a measure that estimates the market value of a company, also reached a peak of 105.5% of GDP in 2007, reflecting the French financial system’s increasing dependency on banks and valuation of their assets.[62] What this created was a dual market in which large, mutual banks (those owned by depositors rather than shareholders) had investment banking arms while investment banking was a secondary service to retail banking. The inseparability of mutual banks and investment banking, however, made these mutual bank arms suffer large losses. Of the many small banks within the French system, two mutual banks and two commercial banks dominated. On the mutual bank side were Banques Populaire and the Caisse d’Epargne (BPCE) with their shared investment banking arm Natixis, and Crédit Agricole with its investment banking arm Calyon. On the commercial bank side, BNP Paribas stood as the largest, suffering the most losses out of any French bank, alongside Société Générale, which also suffered large losses. BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole each increased their foreign bank lending in the years leading up to the financial crisis.[63] This penetration into foreign markets is where France suffered most of their losses. While the larger investment banks faced repercussions due to their foreign involvements with failing banks and markets, smaller banks operating solely within France were less exposed and shielded from the brunt of the crisis. This contrast in exposure levels led to unintentional safeguarding for the smaller French banks. The cooperative and friendly nature between the banks and the government is the result of a “financial network economy.” The banking sector is closely knit in France, with each having membership in the French Banking Federation (FBF). Because of the government’s relationship with the banks, the FBF acted as a de facto government agency, although it was run by the banks. With over 500 members, five French banks make up its Executive Council.[64] Recall that an SME describes an economy where firms heed the advice of government but otherwise act freely, whereas a CME is close, constant coordination between businesses and government. France, under SME direction, has been displaying the coordinated networking characteristics of a CME. France thus cannot necessarily be called a pure SME, but is something in between. Characterizing France as an amalgamation of SME and CME characteristics is further proven by the role taken by the FBF during bailout discussions, in which the FBF decided how to distribute the bailout money to the member banks.[65] Overall, the banking sector is one that is highly coordinated, has strong friendly ties to the government, and shows that France is an SME and CME hybrid. 3. Plan De Soutien Bancaire – SFEF and SPPE On October 16, 2008, the Société de Financement de l’Economie Française (SFEF) and the Société de Prise de Participation de l’Etat (SPPE) were established by legislation. The SFEF is jointly owned by the largest banks in the French economy and the government. The banks own 66% of the SFEF and the government owns 34%.[66] This ownership agreement represents the coordination between the government and the banks. This coordination also shows deference given to the banks, as they own most of SFEF. The purpose of SFEF was to raise funds by issuing debt instruments on the global market.[67] By the end of its operation, it had raised €77 billion.[68] Like the UK’S Credit Guarantee Scheme, institutions had to qualify to be considered under the plan. This plan raised funds on the international market and used the money raised to give loans to struggling banks in France.[69] Interestingly, however, beneficiary credit institutions had to abide by economic and ethical obligations with the French government.[70] Even within the fine print of SFEF, relationships between government and the banks were strengthened and maintained. It is clear that with SFEF, France leaned into more CME characteristics. Interestingly, the French government acted as a company through SPPE. SPPE was a limited liability company owned entirely by the state that participated in both domestic and global bailouts.[71] Of its domestic banks, SPPE capital injections amounted to €21.9 billion to the top 6 banks in the French economy.[72] Abroad, the SPPE participated in the bailout of Dexia, a Belgian-owned bank that had made headway in the French banking sector. This demonstrates cross-border lines of cooperation, which can be attributed to both Belgian penetration in the French economy and EU membership facilitating coordination. Firms could participate voluntarily in SPPE, and those who took capital injections had to comply with lowering executive compensation and lending targets.[73] In addition, the French state acquired securities, albeit without voting rights, thus depriving major penetration into corporate governance.[74] With SPPE, the French government shows an intrusiveness reminiscent of the UK. The significance of the SFEF and SPPE laid in their strategic role in navigating EC constraints. As an EU member, France faced the same EC constraints as the UK. However, unlike the UK, France created loopholes to avoid the restrictive rules on public debts.[75] The SFEF’s ownership structure creates ambiguity over whether the debt belongs to the state or to the banks. It should also be noted that the SFEF and SPPE were not explicitly structured as bailout designs, but rather as institutions that facilitated capital infusions from the government. This allowed France to introduce capital infusions without overtly violating EC rules. Originality of these state aid designs was thus on France’s side, as both SFEF and SPPE were eventually approved by the EC. In contrast to the more explicit intervention designs of the US’ TARP and the UK’s Credit Guarantee Scheme, SFEF and SPPE were not initially structured as bank bailouts and were merely covers for capital infusions. This distinctiveness is crucial because it shows that France was leaning towards CME characteristics, emphasizing collaboration between the French government and investment banks and thereby showing the malleability of a country’s VoC typology under crisis. Overall, this emphasizes the importance of institutional flexibility when shaping bank bailout responses, and thereby adds nuance to how the VoC typology can be applied. 4. Comparing France, the UK, and the US Despite both being EU members, France and the UK crafted bank bailout and state aid systems that were decidedly different. For the UK, it was the hardest hit due to its large and globalized investment banking sector. As an LME, the UK followed a similar path to the US, which was increasing government involvement in the economy, temporarily mimicking an SME. Interestingly, France, traditionally regarded as an SME, did not stick to an SME-like strategy. While the state did take a leading role in France, it is clear that deference was given to firms when crafting the SFEF and SPPE. From dirigisme to post-dirigisme, it appears that France cannot purely be regarded as an SME. Rather, France morphed into something that is both an SME and CME, and during the crisis, it transitioned to a more CME-centered strategy. More intrusive than France, the UK utilized nationalizations and saw board appointments as a viable solution; their bailout plan was more punishment based. Given that the French capitalist system is friendship-based, France did not use nationalization. In the event that they obtained securities, the French state even kept out of corporate governance by denying themselves voting rights. It is clear that the French government respected the authority of firms, and that some level of trust underlines the state aid process that was not observable in the UK. The more punishment-based UK bailout system also produced the largest budget, with France producing the smallest budget. The UK government thus dedicated the most resources, was the most intrusive, and was the strictest in its bailout design. Previously, this paper considered CBI as a possible explanation for intrusiveness levels. However, the UK and France have similar CBIs at .40 and .47 respectively.50 With a consideration of the French case, it is clear that CBI alone does not determine intrusiveness. Rather, an in-depth analysis of the dialogue between the banking sector and the government must be explored. As an LME, the UK did not have an intimate dialogue with its banking sector, allowing it to increase its presence without damaging any existing relationships. Although the US is also an LME, there is still some direct dialogue between the government and the banking sector due to its powerful lobbying system. This is likely why the US avoided nationalizations. However, the French government has the strongest and most direct relationship with its banking sector due to years of SME-like interactions and policies cultivating a CME-like banking sector. In other words, the informal relationships between the French government and its financial sector cultivated an environment where coordination between the government and investment banks was the norm. There is thus more trust between the French government and its banking sector. Like the US, therefore, France was able to be far less intrusive than the United Kingdom. In terms of cooperation between firms, the US was the only one to compel each firm to sign up for its bank bailout plans. Both France and the UK employed the use of voluntary participation. One possible explanation for this is the level and type of political salience in each country. Of the three, the UK faced heavy politicization of the financial crisis. The dissatisfied sentiments felt in the UK during this time would later lead to the 2016 referendum on continued EU membership, commonly known as Brexit. Voluntary participation in the UK bailout plan was likely a result of wanting to avoid public backlash and bank runs similar to Northern Rock. With regards to France and the US, lower levels of politicization occurred as the crisis progressed. France’s choice of voluntary participation likely rested in the trust between banks and the government, as compelling them to join would erode the relationship between the sectors. The US, being the starting location of the crisis, was primarily concerned with protecting confidence in its markets. The US employed a “blanket” strategy so that the weakest banks were not picked apart by public scrutiny. With varying levels of salience and interactions with their respective banking sectors, each country crafted different bailout plans. Conclusion: What Does this Mean for the VoC Literature? This paper has sought to answer to what extent VoC typology determines bank bailout design. Instead, this paper has found little relationship between VoC typology and bailout design. Rather, what has been found is that VoC typology determines the structure of the banking sector, which thereby determines exposure levels to the crisis. VoC typology is, however, indirectly related to bailout design. Overall, the development of bailout designs are influenced by many inputs such as the structure of the banking sector and the dialogue between government and banks. These are indirectly influenced by VoC typology due to differing institutional structures, norms, and relationships that shape a country’s economic landscape. This paper has also found that VoC typology is fluid and should change under times of extreme crisis. The US and UK, both LMEs, employed an SME approach, and after the crisis, reverted back to being LMEs, albeit with new regulations. However, France, the SME, employed a hybrid of an SME-CME approach, with more CME characteristics. That said, France’s response was in line with their long-term transition from an SME to a CME that began with the mass privatization of the 1980s. As a result, France did not have any radical changes in VoC typology, unlike the UK and US. The exact reason for France’s shift from an SME to a CME occurred is beyond the scope of this paper, but it nonetheless displays the fluidity of VoC typology and questions whether France can still truly be considered an SME given its amalgamation of characteristics. The VoC approach is an interesting baseline that can be used to analyze a variety of a country’s political and economic characteristics. This paper has shown that the VoC framework cannot alone determine a country’s bailout strategies and that additional analysis of a country’s institutions must be made. With an adoption of an expanded scope of analysis, the VoC framework can be improved to explain the response patterns to the 2008 financial crisis and beyond. 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White, Ben, and Eric Dash. “Barclays Reaches $1.75 Billion Deal for a Lehman Unit.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Sept. 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/business/worldbusiness/18barclays.html#:~:text=In%20its%20filing%2C%20Lehman%20listed,the%20troubled%20real%20estate%20portfolio. Woll, Cornelia. “Crisis Management across the World.” Essay. In The Power of Inaction, 16–43. Cornell University Press, 2014. Woll, Cornelia. “France and Germany.” Essay. In The Power of Inaction, 112-138. Cornell University Press, 2014. Woll, Cornelia. “The United States and the United Kingdom.” Essay. In The Power of Inaction, 82–111. Cornell University Press, 2014. “£1.1bn in Fees, 3.1m Hours, 14 Years: The UK Cost of Winding up Lehman Brothers.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 28 Dec. 2022, www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/28/the-cost-of-winding-up-lehman-brothers. ________________ [1] Hall & Soskice, “Varieties of Capitalism,” 8. [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid., 16. [4] Regini, “Models of Capitalism and the Crisis,” 24. [5] Ibid., 29. [6] Drahokoupil & Myant, “Varieties of Vulnerabilities,” 271. [7] Howell, “Coordination in a Crisis,” 133. [8] Welch, “Financial Crisis,” 485. [9] Swagel, ”Political and Institutional Constraints,” 108. [10] Schmidt, ”State-Influenced Market Economies,” 156. [11] Hindmoor & McConnell, ”The UK’s Great Financial Crisis,” 63. [12] Niepmann & Eisenlohr, “Bank Bailouts,“ 270. [13] Ibid., 288. [14] Poole, ”Moral Hazard,” 17. [15] Hall & Soskice, ”Varieties of Capitalism,” 17. [16] Ibid., 8. [17] Woll, ”The US and U.K.,” 95. [18] Swagel, ”Institutional Constraints,” 108. [19] Ibid., 111. [20] Ibid., 110. [21] The Guardian, “£1.1bn in fees, 3.1m hours, 14 years: the UK cost of winding up Lehman Brothers,” 2022. [22] Dosdall & Rom-Jensen, “Letting Lehman Go,“ 202. [23] White & Dash, New York Times, “Barclays Reaches $1.75 billion Deal for a Lehman Unit”, 2008. [24] Culpepper & Reinke, ”Structural Power and Bank Bailouts”, Table 2. [25] Swagel, ”The Financial Crisis,” 2. [26] Culpepper & Reinke, ”Structural Power and Bank Bailouts,” 436. [27] Calomiris & Khan, ”An Assessment of TARP,” 56. [28] Pritchard, ”Dark Clouds and Turbulence in Europe,” 99. [29] Ibid. [30] European Commission, ”State Aid N 507/2008 - UK”, 6. [31] Ibid, 7. [32] Pritchard, ”Dark Clouds and Turbulence in Europe,” 105. [33] Ibid, 106. [34] Ibid, 110. [35] Grossman & Woll, ”The Political Economy of Bailouts” Figure 3, 583. [36] Moschella, ”Different Varieties of Capitalism?,” 85. [37] McNamara, ”The UK’S Credit Guarantee Scheme (U.K GFC),” 930. [38] Ibid. [39] Ibid, 929. [40] Moschella, ”Different Varieties of Capitalism?”, 84. [41] Ibid, 86. [42] Ibid, 79. [43] United Kingdom Debt Management Office, 2008 Credit Guarantee Scheme. [44] McNamara, ”United Kingdom: Credit Guarantee Scheme,” 927. [45] Ibid., 934. [46] Woll, ”The Power of Inaction”, Figure 2.2. [47]Pritchard, “United Kingdom: Politics of Government Survival,“ 115. [48] Moschella, ”Different Varieties of Capitalism?” 88. [49] William Bernhard, ”Variations in Central Bank Independence,” Table 1. [50] Ibid, 312. [51] Ibid, 314. [52] Schmidt, “What Happened to the SMEs?,” 162. [53] Howarth, ”France and the International Financial Crisis,”383. [54] Ibid, Directive no. 89/647., 384. [55] Ibid. [56] Jabko & Massoc, ”French Capitalism Under Stress,” 563. [57] Ibid, 565. [58] Ibid, 566. [59] Cabannes et. al., “French Firms in the face of the 2008/2009 crisis,” 1. [60] Howarth, ”France and the International Financial Crisis,” 385. [61] Ibid, Table 1. [62] Ibid. [63] Ibid, 379. [64] Jabko & Massoc, ”French Capitalism Under Stress,” 574. [65] Ibid. [66] Woll, ”The Power of Inaction,” 117. [67] Fang, ”French Liquidity Support through SFEF”, 682. [68] Ibid. [69] Fang, “French Liquidity Support through SFEF,” 1. [70] Ibid, 686. [71] Jeffereis, ”France SPPE,” 65. [72] Ibid, 70. [73] Ibid, 65. [74] Jabko & Massoc, ”French Capitalism Under Stress”, 571. [75] Ibid, 576.

All Lesbians go to Pride Politics Previous Next BY Caitlin Barotz This paper delves into the complex issue of asylum-seeking by queer individuals escaping persecution. The paper begins by providing a historical context, tracing the evolution of asylum law, particularly focusing on the United States' recognition of sexual orientation as a valid ground for asylum. The landmark cases of Matter of Toboso-Alfonso and Pitcherskaia v. INS are explored, emphasizing the legal strides made in acknowledging the persecution faced by LGBTQ+ individuals. The core of the paper addresses the unique challenges faced by queer refugees and asylum seekers, highlighting the pervasive discrimination, oppression, and violence that LGBTQ+ individuals often experience even before fleeing their home countries. These challenges are exacerbated by logistical, financial, institutional, and psychological barriers that queer refugees encounter during their journey to safety and in the United States. The paper concludes with a comprehensive discussion of potential improvements to the asylum process for queer refugees. These include the need for better training for immigration officials to reduce bias, increasing diversity among immigration judges to provide a broader perspective, and employing specialized clinicians at the border to support queer refugees' mental health and establish trust. The ultimate aim is to create a more inclusive and equitable asylum system that recognizes and validates the unique experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals. This paper calls for systemic changes to ensure that seeking asylum is a more accessible and just process for those fleeing persecution based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. I. Introduction As the United States has become increasingly accepting of queerness, many nations remain highly repressive, criminalize homosexuality, and lack the legal protections to safeguard queer individuals from persecution.[1] 64 countries—one-third of United Nations member states—criminalize homosexuality, and a guilty verdict may result in imprisonment or the death sentence.[2] Some countries have instituted severe punishments for individuals who do not obey conventional gender norms and have barred non-traditional expressions of gender identity, such as cross-dressing.[3] In many of these countries, queer people often face barriers to employment, leading to financial challenges and preventing them from living successful lives.[4] Queer individuals around the world experience an alarming frequency of abuse rising above the level of mere harassment during their daily lives if they dare to express their sexual identity. For instance, there is a Russian criminal gang whose members pose as online romantic interests on gay dating apps and lure their victims in order to film, extort, and punish them for homosexual activity.[5] The group, called “Occupy Paedophilia,” has also seduced gay men over Facebook and has uploaded videos of their victims being attacked and humiliated to VKontakte, an anti-gay website, as well as YouTube and Twitter.[6] In cases like this, individuals seek out queer people in order to torment and abuse them. Even in countries where homosexuality identities are legal, queer people are mistreated by individuals who believe that queerness is wrong. As such, queer individuals are forced to conceal their identities, oftentimes from friends, family, and their larger social sphere.[7] As this persecution persists, an increasing number of queer people have begun seeking asylum in the United States. However, as the understanding of queer people as a solidly defined social group is still emerging, legal questions are posed when it comes to proving their right to persecution-related asylum or proving that one is queer. II. Understanding the Asylum Seeking Process For individuals seeking safety from persecution in their home country, receiving asylum in another nation can mean the difference between life and death. International asylum law evolved following World War II, where over 2.3 million individuals were displaced, and many sought refuge in other countries.[8] As of 2015, there are over 65 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, and this number continues to rise due to armed conflict, human rights abuses, and the global climate crisis.[9] The principle of non-refoulement, which is a key component of international law, states that governments cannot forcibly return anyone to their country of origin if their life or freedom is threatened due to their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.[10] However, although persecuted individuals have a right to non-refoulement, international law does not guarantee anyone the right to asylum.[11] As such, refugees who wish to stay in the country to which they have fled must apply for asylum, which is an extremely complex legal process, and many asylum claims are ultimately denied. Since the development of asylum law in the 1950s, there have been many advancements to allow individuals to claim asylum on the grounds of being persecuted for their sexual orientation. However, there are countless reports of queer individuals being denied asylum for reasons directly relating to their queer identity. In this paper, “queer” is used to refer to anyone who identifies with the LGBTQ+ community, including homosexual and transgender individuals. The United States has a rigorous legal procedure that refugees must complete in order to prove that they face persecution in their home country and gain asylum status. Since granting asylum is costly for the host country, the United States often denies asylum claims on technicalities even when applicants are able to meet all other criteria. Due to widespread persecution of queerness around the world, queer refugees face many unique challenges at every step of the refugee process, especially in proving their identities when making legal claims for asylum. As such, the asylum process must be improved to support queer refugees, ideally through intentionally decreasing the impact of judicial bias on asylum decisions and creating a support system for queer refugees. III. Queerness as a Legally Recognized Persecuted Social Group Entitled to Asylum Asylum is a status of protection that is granted to individuals who meet the technical definition of a “refugee” under international law. In order to gain asylum status, there are three baseline requirements that individuals must meet. First, the asylum-seeking individual must prove that they meet the definition of a refugee. A refugee is someone who is unwilling or unable to return to their home country due to persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”[12] Second, they must prove that they have been persecuted or experienced “conduct rising above the mere level of harassment.”[13] Third, the asylum seeker must prove that they fall within one of the five protected grounds and that their identification with at least one of these groups is a “central reason” for the persecution they faced or of which they have a well-founded fear.[14] Asylum applicants will have vastly different legal processes depending on the grounds on which they claim asylum. Securing asylum based on membership in a persecuted social group, as opposed to one of the other protected grounds, poses unique challenges in the refugee process due to the ambiguous nature of defining “particular social group” and the criteria required for recognition. Unlike race, religion, nationality, and political opinion, there is no set definition for what constitutes membership in a “particular social group” on the grounds of which someone can claim asylum. To be recognized as a particular social group, the group must be unique, identifiable, and individuals in the group must share a common characteristic that they cannot or should not be expected to change.[15] Most commonly under this category, the United States currently offers asylum to subjugated tribes and ethnic groups, members of persecuted occupations (for example, police officers), influential leaders who are being targeted for assassination, child soldiers, and LGBTQ+ individuals.[16] Seeking asylum on the basis of belonging to a particular social group means that individuals must first prove that they belong to this group, which is sometimes more ambiguous or harder to prove than characteristics like race or nationality. Next, applicants must prove that they have faced, or have a well-founded fear of, persecution. Finally, asylum seekers must substantiate that the persecution is directly due to their membership in this particular social group. In the United States, asylum is a “discretionary” status, meaning that even if individuals meet the definition of a refugee and are able to prove that they face persecution because of the group to which they belong, they can still be denied asylum.[17] These requirements for asylum prove to be uniquely challenging for queer individuals due to the fluidity in representing one’s sexual orientation and gender identity and the difficulty in proving one’s affiliation with the queer community. The legal precedent set by the court case Matter of Toboso-Alfonso was crucial in acknowledging queerness as a persecuted social group in the United States, providing a foundational basis for queer individuals to seek asylum. In this 1990 court case, a gay man from Cuba was found to be eligible for “withholding of removal,” or a form of relief similar to asylum status, on the basis that he belonged to the particular social group of homosexuals – this case was the first successful “relief-from removal” claim for persecution due to sexual orientation. Further, in order for one to gain asylum on the grounds of being part of a particular social group, the group must share a common characteristic that individuals cannot or should not be required to change.[18] The Matter of Toboso-Alfonso established homosexual identity as an “immutable characteristic” that one cannot or should not be required to change,[19] establishing queer identity as a protected social group from which people could claim asylum. The decision also reflected a change in the political attitude toward queerness from an inherently incorrect and deplorable lifestyle to an identity that deserves protection. The decision resulting from Pitcherskaia v. INS was also imperative to solidifying that persecution on the basis of sexual orientation can be a valid ground for granting asylum in the United States. This case centered around a lesbian from Russia who fled after being beaten and receiving death threats from police officers because of her sexual identity.[20] At first, her asylum claim was denied, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in 1997, enshrining the precedent that sexual orientation can be a valid reason to grant asylum if the claimant can prove that the oppression they experienced was due to their sexual identity.[21] This case also emphasized that the government cannot use sexual orientation as a reason to deny asylum to an individual because it would violate the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.[22] Recently, the Ninth Circuit affirmed that “all alien homosexuals are members of a particular social group,” and other countries have ruled similarly.[23] The Pitcherskaia v. INS ruling also provided additional pathways for queer individuals to prove persecution on the grounds of being LGBTQ+. In most asylum cases, the asylum seeker must prove that the persecutor has harmed or intends to harm the individual because of their identity. The decision resulting from Pitcherskaia v. INS specifically mentioned that “the infliction of harm through methods or devices that cause extreme, cruel, and unusual pain, such as […] electroshock therapy” can be considered persecution.[24] This is significant for individuals seeking asylum on the grounds of sexual identity, because homosexuals are often subject to electroshock or other forms of conversion therapy in order to “cure” their sexual orientation.[25] As a result of this decision, courts have since determined that for queer individuals, persecution can occur even when the persecutor has no apparent intention to harm the individual.[26] This is often the case with electroshock therapy victims, as the objective of the perpetrators is often to “cure” the victim rather than to harm them.[27] As such, queer individuals are able to prove persecution due to sexual identity if they have been subject to or are being threatened with violent forms of conversion therapy, and this provides another way in which queer individuals can substantiate a well-founded fear of persecution in order to gain asylum. Despite all of these landmark court decisions, queer individuals still face significant obstacles when seeking asylum due to persecution based on their sexual identity. The United States has a legal duty to provide a safe haven for individuals fleeing persecution based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Congress incorporated the definition of a refugee set by the United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol into United States immigration law in the Refugee Act of 1980.[28] As a signatory to both the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol, the United States is legally obligated to provide protection to those who qualify as refugees.[29] As long as U.S. law establishes queerness as a persecuted social group and grounds for asylum status, which it has through previously mentioned landmark court cases, the United States must grant asylum to queer refugees who qualify for such protected status. IV. Challenges Faced by Queer Refugees The United States asylum presents individuals with a complex web of physical and legal challenges. There are seven standard steps that asylum seekers must complete in order to receive asylum status. Firstly, refugees must arrive in the United States, which requires crossing the United States’ border by land, sea, or air.[30] Asylum seekers must then apply for asylum within one year of their arrival in the country.[31] After one’s application is received by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), they must be fingerprinted and undergo a background check.[32] Next, the asylum seeker will be interviewed by the USCIS, at which point the court or asylum officer will determine whether or not the individual is eligible for asylum under the conditions previously stated.[33] On average, if an asylum seeker is approved at every step of the process, it can take several months to years to be approved for asylum.[34] However, although the asylum process is largely standardized queer individuals face unique barriers at specific stages of this process. Queer people face unique logistical, financial, institutional, and psychological challenges on their journeys to the United States in order to apply for asylum status. Because many LGBTQ+ individuals cannot publically express their queer identities, they cannot turn to family or friends for assistance when trying to flee.[35] Travel is costly, and people who are barred from the workforce on account of discrimination due to their sexual identities have trouble obtaining the funds needed to get to the United States.[36] Countries that criminalize queerness often invest in widespread surveillance, making it difficult for people to leave without revealing the reason for their departure.[37] For example, in Iran, where queerness is penalized under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, a new repressive “Regulatory System for Cyberspace Services Bill” increases the state’s surveillance power and bans encrypted communication sites, Virtual Private Networks, (VPNs), and many social media platforms.[38] This gives state security and police forces the ability to surveil citizens’ use of certain websites with ease and impunity.[39] Further, the law prevents the queer community from accessing safe online queer spaces, such as Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and Grindr, and hinders the ability for queer people to communicate with individuals outside of the country to plan their escape.[40] While traveling to the United States, queer refugees are often harassed by other refugees in refugee camps and have reported discrimination by immigration officials because of their sexual orientation.[41] For instance, asylum seekers have reported being deported by U.S. immigration officers despite voicing fears about returning to Mexico because of their LGBTQ+ identity, many of whom had previously faced abuse linked to their gender identity, expression, or sexual orientation.[42] These reports by Human Rights Watch also detailed severe abuse by Mexican border agents when queer asylum seekers attempted to enter the United States.[43] The multitude of challenges, from financial constraints to institutional barriers and the pervasive threat of discrimination, exacerbates the difficulties faced by LGBTQ+ individuals seeking asylum in the United States based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Once in the United States, queer refugees also face discrimination upon arrival. There are countless reports of border patrol and other government officials exhibiting bias and prejudice against queer refugees upon their arrival which can be attributed to the inadequate training that these officials receive.[44] For example, in March 2022, the El Paso region’s official Twitter account for U.S. Customs and Border Control promoted homophobic content, liking several tweets containing homophobic slurs and criticizing gay U.S. representatives.[45] This incident clearly exemplifies the bias and prejudice that some U.S. Border Patrol officials hold regarding queerness. These discriminatory attitudes hinder refugees from being open and honest in their interview processes, which can be detrimental in proving an asylum claim.[46] There have also been instances in which queer refugees face abuse while detained in immigration centers in the United States.[47] In 2011 alone, Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) filed 17 reports of abuse of LGBTQ+ individuals in detention centres, including sexual abuse by detention guards and other detainees.[48] Abuse in immigration detention centers can lead to severe emotional and psychological trauma, which may also prevent refugees from recounting their full experiences coherently and confidently during their asylum interviews. Queer refugees also face unique legal barriers in proving their claims for asylum during the interview stage. As mentioned previously, a major requirement of the asylum process is proving that the individual claiming asylum is part of a particular social group that is persecuted. Since most queer people seeking asylum are forced to conceal their sexual and/or gender identities in their home country, there is often little to no evidence that they belong to the LGBTQ+ community. Many homosexual applicants have never been in queer relationships.[49] Others may have been in heterosexual marriages and may even have children from such marriages.[50] This can create substantial doubt in the minds of immigration judges as to the validity of an individual’s claim to a queer identity.[51] Applicants seeking asylum on other grounds may also have to hide aspects of their identities to escape persecution, but there are often other cultural, linguistic, or physical markers that can help prove their belonging in a persecuted community after they have fled, and similar markers do not exist for individuals trying to prove queerness.[52] Immigration judges have been known to resort to extensive interrogation to determine whether an individual is queer and thus deserving of asylum status.[53] However, these questions are often inappropriate and invasive since they deal with the applicant’s sexual history.[54] Asylum seekers have been asked sexually explicit questions such as, “Did you put your penis into X’s backside?”[55] This line of questioning not only creates an extremely uncomfortable environment for the applicants but also may reignite trauma that an applicant has surrounding the discrimination they face for being queer. The already difficult asylum process is not designed to recognize and accommodate the specificities of the queer experience, as LGBTQ+ asylum seekers are often denied asylum on technical grounds. An applicant’s claim could be denied simply because they failed to file their application within their first year of arrival in the United States.[56] Although this does not appear to relate to queerness on its surface, many queer applicants fail to meet this filing deadline because they are unable to “come out” during their first year in the United States.[57] Other applicants are denied asylum status due to criminal records in their home countries which disproportionately affects LGBTQ+ individuals from countries in which queerness is criminalized.[58] Further, applicants can be denied asylum if they are unable to prove their immigration history through employment records.[59] This is common for individuals from countries in which queer people are denied access to jobs and have been forced to work under the table and are therefore unable to provide proof of employment.[60] It is clear that queer individuals face additional barriers in the asylum process, proving that the unequal nature of the asylum seeking process is further amplified by an individual’s queer identity. Even if queer applicants are able to meet every qualification necessary to be granted asylum, they can still be denied asylum status due to the personal feelings of the immigration judge or asylum officer. Since United States asylum law operates on discretionary grounds, the adjudicator may use their own discretion to make an “adverse credibility finding.”[61] This means that an applicant can be denied asylum if the immigration judge does not believe that the individual’s story is credible.[62] An adverse credibility finding is largely reliant on the applicant’s physical presentation in relation to their queer identity, as some judges may want the individual to look visibly queer in order to grant them asylum.[63] For example, an immigration judge denied the asylum claim of a lesbian woman from Jamaica because the judge did not believe she was homosexual, stating “you don’t look like a lesbian.”[64] The woman’s credibility was questioned further when she stated that she did not attend a Pride march, and the judge responded, “all lesbians go to Pride.”[65] In this case and countless others, a refugee’s asylum status is heavily reliant on the adjudicator’s attitudes and assumptions about the queer experience, making asylum decisions highly variable from judge to judge. This is an experience unique to queer people, as the judge’s opinion of other marginalized identities often does not influence whether they are granted asylum. Immigration judges and asylum officers cannot make an “adverse credibility finding” against an applicant seeking asylum on the grounds of racial or religious persecution, and it should not be any different for those seeking asylum on the basis of sexual orientation. Whether or not an individual is granted protection from persecution should not be up to an adjudicator’s belief that the individual fits their perceived notions of a queer person. V. Proposals for a More Inclusive Asylum Process While the process for claiming asylum on the grounds of persecution due to one’s sexual orientation is extremely flawed, the basis for queer asylum law is fairly new, and, as such, there are many opportunities for improvement. Almost all interviews involving LGBTQ+ claims result in positive determinations of fear of persecution; between 2012 and 2017, 96.3% of queer asylum applicants were found to have been persecuted or have a well-founded fear of persecution.[66] This indicates that in order to better the asylum process for queer applicants, improvements in the asylum-seeking process should be focused around reducing discrimination and bias directed at queer individuals claiming asylum. The United States has little ability to change other countries’ attitudes and policies regarding queerness and cannot prevent persecution that occurs outside of its jurisdiction. However, the United States can implement domestic policies to improve refugees’ experiences after arriving in the country. First, there must be better training for immigration officers and border patrol in order to reduce prejudiced and biased attitudes towards queerness and help asylum seekers feel more comfortable discussing their queer identities. This training should be modeled after similar programs to mitigate bias against LGBTQ+ individuals by healthcare workers.[67] Effective strategies include those that increase knowledge about the specific needs of queer individuals, promote positive attitudes towards queerness, and increase comfort working with queer patients, all of which can be translated to a training program for immigration officials.[68] If immigration officials do not display discriminatory attitudes towards queerness, there will be fewer instances in which refugees refrain from expressing their queer identities. A refugee feeling comfortable to demonstrate their queer identity will ultimately be helpful in the asylum process and could be a key element in proving that they are part of the queer community. Next, since LGBTQ+ refugees are at greater risk of abuse while in detention centers, the United States should end the detention of queer refugees entirely. According to the United States Bureau of Justice statistics, 34% of detained bisexual men and 39% of detained gay men had reported experiencing sexual abuse while in detention, in comparison to only 3.5% of men who identified themselves as heterosexual.[69] Additionally, LGBTQ+ refugees are disproportionately subjected to elevated rates of verbal abuse and threats of sexual and physical violence.[70] As such, many human rights organizations strongly advocate for exploring more humane, safe alternatives to detention centers while queer individuals work to resolve their asylum claims.[71] Such alternatives can manifest as community-based programs, managed by non-governmental and non-profit organizations closely connected to the communities they serve.[72] These programs offer essential services, including legal guidance, representation, and access to social services such as medical care, while still ensuring asylum seekers’ compliance with immigration obligations.[73] Pilot models of community-based programs prioritize the development of trust between asylum seekers and the non-governmental organizations overseeing their asylum claims, aligning services with clients’ compliance with the legal requirements of the asylum process.[74] These programs have been shown to increase compliance with immigration proceedings and reduce obstacles to compliance that are created by detention centers.[75] While these initiatives are in their early stages, the elimination of immigration detention centers offers the promise of a more humane asylum process for queer refugees. In addition to implicit bias training, the United States must ensure that there is diversity of sexual and gender identity among asylum judges and immigration attorneys. An increased amount of diversity among immigration judges helps bring a wider range of perspectives and understandings about different identities.[76] Further, judges with diverse backgrounds are more likely to be impartial and fair in their decisions.[77] It is largely acknowledged that immigration court appointments strongly affect immigration court decisions; the Trump administration appointed over 350 new immigration judges, constituting two-thirds of the 520 federal immigration judges—and the asylum denial rate decreased from 54.6% in 2016 to 71.6% in 2020.[78] While other factors, such as court policy changes, also account for this decrease in asylum grants, many have attributed this in large to the lack of diversity in Trump’s appointments, revealing the importance of diversity of immigration judges in granting asylum claims.[79] People have since criticized President Joe Biden for failing to commit to racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in his appointment of immigration judges.[80] However, sexual diversity is often left out of this debate. The United States must employ more queer and gender nonconforming asylum judges in the same way diversity is considered for other aspects of identity. Ensuring greater sexual and gender diversity will limit the number of instances in which the decision to grant asylum to a queer individual is based on stereotypes of the community from an outsider’s perspective. A greater number of queer asylum judges would also increase the prevalence of the queer perspective in the asylum seeking process and in spaces where precedents regarding asylum law are set. Finally, the United States should employ more clinicians—including psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers—at the border who are specifically trained to help queer refugees. In cases where refugees are uncomfortable communicating with immigration officers, it is crucial to increase the availability of clinicians and mental health professionals with whom queer refugees may speak with upon their arrival in the United States. These clinicians will offer mental health support,[81] which is necessary for refugees who faced traumatizing experiences in and on their journeys out of their home countries. The clinicians will also be able to build trust with refugees and encourage full disclosure of their experiences.[82] Clinicians could use this evidence to testify in court in favor of the refugees during their asylum claims, which could be integral in granting asylum to an applicant.[83] If clinicians are able to establish a strong relationship with refugees, they may also be able to also assist the refugees in accessing other resources—such as specific healthcare needs, housing, and employment—to make the asylum process easier.[84] This will help create a supportive environment for refugees who may have had to conceal their identities for their entire lives. While it may be idealistic to assume that clinicians can seamlessly assist refugees in accessing various resources beyond their scope, any effort that can be made towards encouraging refugees to express themselves will be beneficial in validating refugees’ asylum claims. If their claims are granted, refugees who feel supported and secure in the United States will have an easier time establishing themselves in the country. V. Conclusion While significant strides have been made in recognizing queerness as a basis for asylum, there remains an imperative to bridge the gap between legal standards and the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals seeking refuge. Queer refugees face unique burdens when it comes to claiming asylum in the United States, and these hurdles are exacerbated by the unique forms of persecution queer individuals in their day-to-day lives. Although there have been tremendous advancements made towards granting queer people asylum on the basis of being members of a particular persecuted social group, there are still many reforms that must be instituted in order to make the process more accessible and equitable for queer refugees. The United States, as a signatory to international conventions, bears the responsibility to ensure a more equitable and humane asylum process that genuinely safeguards the rights of queer refugees fleeing persecution. Such efforts demand a commitment to reforming policies, addressing biases, and providing holistic support for LGBTQ+ individuals seeking asylum, ensuring that their right to safety and protection is upheld without prejudice. The ultimate goal is the establishment of sexual identity and gender as a permanent grounds on which individuals can claim asylum; this will not only cement the idea that queer individuals experience persecution due to their identities, but also it will increase the prevalence and legitimacy of queer perspectives in asylum law. Until this becomes a reality, the United States must focus on reducing bias towards queerness among immigration officials, increasing the diversity of immigration judges, and creating a supportive environment for queer asylum seekers, all of which will be significant steps towards inclusivity and equity in asylum law. Works Cited ________________ [1] University of Virginia Department of Family Medicine. "Clinical Guidelines for the Primary Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Asylum Seekers and Refugees." Accessed May 8, 2023. https://med.virginia.edu/family-medicine/wp-content/uploads/sites/285/2021/03/LGBTQasylumseekers.pdf. [2] Wareham, Jamie. "New Maps Show Where It's Illegal To Be LGBTQ+ In 2023." Forbes, April 7, 2023. Accessed May 8, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiewareham/2023/04/07/new-maps-show-where-its-illegal-to-be-lgbtq-in-2023/?sh=49e1420c7eaa. [3] Ibid. [4] University of Virginia Department of Family Medicine, "Clinical Guidelines for the Primary Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Asylum Seekers and Refugees." [5] "Gay 'Hunters' in Moscow Using Dating Apps to Target LGBT+ People." The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/gay-hunters-russia-moscow-apps-gangs-homophobia-a8865376.html (Accessed October 31, 2023). [6] "Russia's Violent Anti-Gay Groups on VKontakte." The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/11/russia-violent-anti-gay-groups-vkontakte-lgbt-sochi (Accessed October 31, 2023). [7] University of Virginia Department of Family Medicine, "Clinical Guidelines for the Primary Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Asylum Seekers and Refugees." [8] Hynes, P. (2021). “Who is a ‘refugee’ and who is an ‘asylum seeker’?” In Introducing Forced Migration. essay, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. [9] Ibid. [10] Ibid. [11] Ibid. [12] “Asylum in the United States.” American Immigration Council, October 18, 2022. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/asylum-united-states. [13] Topel, Kimberly D. “‘So, What Should I Ask Him to Prove That He’s Gay?’: How Sincerity, and Not Stereotype, Should Dictate the Outcome of an LGB Asylum Claim in the United States .” Iowa Law Review 102, no. 5 (2017). [14] Ibid. [15] “What Does the Term, ‘Particular Social Group,’ Mean for Asylum?” The Law Office of Yifei He, PLLC, May 18, 2022. https://yifeihelaw.com/2021/03/what-does-the-term-particular-social-group-mean-for-asylum/. [16] Ibid. [17] American Immigration Council, “Asylum in the United States.” [18] Ibid. [19] Topel, “‘So, What Should I Ask Him to Prove That He’s Gay?’: How Sincerity, and Not Stereotype, Should Dictate the Outcome of an LGB Asylum Claim in the United States .” [20] “A Brief History.” Immigration Equality, August 7, 2020. https://immigrationequality.org/asylum/asylum-manual/asylum-law-basics-2/asylum-law-basics/. [21] Ibid. [22] Ibid. [23] Ibid. [24] Pitcherskaia v. INS, 118 F.3d 641 (9th Cir. 1997). [25] Immigration Equality, "A Brief History." [26] Ibid. [27] Ibid. [28] American Immigration Council. "Asylum in the United States." https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/asylum-united-states (Accessed November 2, 2023). [29] Ibid. [30] U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "The Affirmative Asylum Process." https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum/the-affirmative-asylum-process (Accessed November 1, 2023). [31] Ibid. [32] Ibid. [33] Ibid. [34] Ibid. [35] Ibid. [36] University of Virginia Department of Family Medicine, "Clinical Guidelines for the Primary Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Asylum Seekers and Refugees." [37] Ibid. [38] "Internet Protection Bill and Its Impact on the Queer Community," Atlantic Council, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/the-internet-protection-bill-will-hurt-all-iranians-but-the-queer-community-will-have-the-most-to-lose/ (Accessed October 31, 2023). [39] Ibid. [40] Ibid. [41] Ibid. [42] Human Rights Watch, "US: LGBT Asylum Seekers in Danger at Border," Human Rights Watch, May 31, 2022, accessed [insert date accessed], https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/31/us-lgbt-asylum-seekers-danger-border. [43] Human Rights Watch, "US: LGBT Asylum Seekers in Danger at Border," Human Rights Watch, May 31, 2022, accessed [insert date accessed], https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/31/us-lgbt-asylum-seekers-danger-border. [44] "Internet Protection Bill and Its Impact on the Queer Community," Atlantic Council. [45] "El Paso CBP Twitter Account Promotes Conservative Homophobic Content," El Paso Matters, https://elpasomatters.org/2022/09/10/el-paso-cbp-twitter-account-promotes-conservative-homophobic-content/ (Accessed October 31, 2023). [46] Ibid. [47] Nguyen, Mytien, Ryan Handoko, Emmanuella Asabor, and Katherine C McKenzie. “A Gay Nigerian Man’s Journey to Asylum in the USA.” BMJ case reports, April 5, 2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6453367/. [48] Ibid. [49] National Center for Lesbian Rights. "Challenges to Lesbian Asylum Claims." San Francisco: National Center for Lesbian Rights, April 2013. Accessed May 8, 2023. https://www.nclrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Resources_Challenges_Lesbian_Asylum_Claims.pdf. [50] National Center for Lesbian Rights. "Challenges to Lesbian Asylum Claims." San Francisco: National Center for Lesbian Rights. [51] Ibid. [52] Ibid. [53] Topel, “‘So, What Should I Ask Him to Prove That He’s Gay?’: How Sincerity, and Not Stereotype, Should Dictate the Outcome of an LGB Asylum Claim in the United States.” [54] Ibid. [55] Travis, Alan. "Gay asylum seekers in UK face 'sexually explicit' questions." The Guardian, October 23, 2014. Accessed May 8, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/23/gay-asylum-seekers-sexual-questions-uk-immigration. [56] Cory, Connor. “THE LGBTQ ASYLUM SEEKER: PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS AND AUTHENTIC QUEER IDENTITIES .” The Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law 20, no. 3 (2019). [57] Ibid. [58] Ibid. [59] Ibid. [60] Ibid. [61] Ibid. [62] Ibid. [63] Ibid. [64] Topel, “‘So, What Should I Ask Him to Prove That He’s Gay?’: How Sincerity, and Not Stereotype, Should Dictate the Outcome of an LGB Asylum Claim in the United States.” [65] Ibid. [66] Flores, Andrew R., Bianca D.M. Wilson, and Kerith J. Conron. "Asylum Seekers and Refugees Who Identify as LGBTQ: Challenges, Realities, and Hopes for the Future." Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, March 2021. Accessed May 8, 2023. [67] Morris, et al. “Training to Reduce LGBTQ-Related Bias among Medical, Nursing, and Dental Students and Providers: A Systematic Review.” BMC Medical Education, August 30, 2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6716913/. [68] Ibid. [69] International Detention Coalition. “LGBTI Persons in Immigration Detention.” Victoria: Australia, June 2016. [70] Ibid. [71] International Detention Coalition. “LGBTI Persons in Immigration Detention.” Victoria: Australia, June 2016. [72] “Alternatives to Immigration Detention: An Overview.” American Immigration Council, July 11, 2023. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/alternatives-immigration-detention-overview. [73] Ibid. [74] Ibid. [75] Ibid. [76] Kuck, Charles H. "Diversity in Immigration Law Firms." Think Immigration, American Immigration Lawyers Association, 7 Feb. 2020, https://thinkimmigration.org/blog/2020/02/07/diversity-in-immigration-law-firms/. [77] Ibid. [78] Wolf, Rebekah. “First Round of Biden Immigration Judges Fails to Increase Diversity.” Immigration Impact, May 13, 2021. https://immigrationimpact.com/2021/05/13/immigration-judges-under-biden/. [79] Ibid. [80] Ibid. [81] University of Virginia Department of Family Medicine, "Clinical Guidelines for the Primary Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Asylum Seekers and Refugees." [82] University of Virginia Department of Family Medicine, "Clinical Guidelines for the Primary Care of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Asylum Seekers and Refugees." [83] Ibid. [84] Ibid.

Female education and female labor force participation in Europe: the cause of lower fertility rates or the solution? Economics Previous Next BY Lucrezia Asdente The relationship between female education, female labor force participation (FLFP), and fertility rates has always been highly debated among scholars. Nowadays, as Europe faces the challenges posed by an aging population and decreasing fertility rates, it is critical to examine what could counter the bleak implications of such trends. This article aims to contribute a possible solution to change current European population prospects. The analysis of the relationship between female education and FLFP demonstrates how they are positively correlated with fertility intentions in developed countries and, in certain institutional contexts, with actual fertility outcomes (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020). Therefore, it is suggested that the implementation of policies fostering gender equity both inside and outside the household would enable women to invest both in their human capital and in family life (Jaumotte, 2004). The essay starts with a brief introduction of Europe and its current demographic framework. The subsequent segments investigate the association between female education and fertility, FLFP and fertility, and, lastly, the relationship between the three of them. Finally, the role of family policies is discussed, and it is followed by the closing section on the findings and limitations of this study. It is concluded that, in developed countries with equitable socioeconomic contexts, higher female education and labor force participation could be a valuable means to counter the implications of current European demographic trends. Word count: 4492 ________________ The global population experienced unprecedented economic and social development in the twentieth century, yet it also witnessed significant declines in fertility and population growth rates (Bryant, 2007). Until the 1980s, only the most developed countries had low fertility rates. Lately, however, it has become a global problem. An increasing number of Asian, Latin American, and Caribbean nations report sub-replacement fertility rates, meaning they are under the threshold that ensures that a population perfectly replaces itself from generation to generation (Sobotka et al., 2019). Nevertheless, decreasing fertility is far from a homogeneously diffused phenomenon. Indeed, nowadays, half of the world’s population lives in countries where the period Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is below the replacement level threshold of around 2.1 births per woman. This distribution results from the negative relationship between fertility and economic and social progress, which has become one of the most well-established empirical regularities in the social sciences (Lee, 2003). As Lee explains, most economic models of fertility indicate that parents have a desired number of surviving children (2003). As economic and social advancement improves child survival rates, the number of desired offspring decreases (see Nerlove, 1974). This negative relation has been regarded as individuals’ rational reaction to improvements in medical technology, wealth, nutrition, contraceptive technology, and evolving societal norms and values. These factors have de facto resulted in lower desired fertility rates, smaller family sizes, and an overall trend toward an aging population. In several highly developed countries which have reached “very low” (with a TFR below 1.5), “lowest-low,” or “ultra-low” (with a TFR below 1.3) fertility, the trend of decreased fertility is even assumed to be irreversible, especially as it is associated with rapid population aging (Basten et al., 2014). Europe, the region examined in this analysis, is one of the most affected areas with a TFR of 1.53 live births per woman in 2021 and “very low” to “ultra-low” fertility rates of 1.2 to 1.5 children per woman being recorded across the continent, particularly in Southern and Eastern European countries (Eurostat, 2023a). The shrinking working-age population strains labor markets and welfare states and leads to major socioeconomic concerns and policy challenges. The reduction in the working-age population leads to labor shortages, a decrease in overall economic output, reduced productivity and innovation, and increased pressure on social welfare systems. This hampers a country’s ability to sustain economic growth (Mason et al., 2022). As Mason and his colleagues explain, this leads to a higher old-age dependency ratio—meaning there is more consumption in excess of aggregate labor income for the population aged 65 and older—which places a burden on social welfare systems including healthcare and pensions (2022). This strain on public resources may result in difficulty funding these systems and increased per-capita burden of public debt (Mason et al., 2022). In this regard, many factors have been investigated in an attempt to find the reasons behind falling TFR and counter its bleak implications. Among them, female education and female labor force participation (FLFP) have been traditionally considered negatively correlated with women’s childbearing. However, the EU is also striving to achieve greater gender equality, with policies granting women the same employment and educational opportunities as their male counterparts implemented alongside other policies fostering TFR growth (European Commission, 2020). Therefore, were the negative relationship between female education and FLFP to hold, the European Union, while attempting to attain the best of both worlds—higher TFR and higher rates of educated and working women—would risk ending up empty-handed. In light of the challenges that Europe is presently facing, this article presents a counterargument to historical views by reexamining the relation between female education, FLFP, and fertility (both intended and actual). The analysis demonstrates that female education is positively correlated with fertility intentions. The relationship between female education, FLFP, and fertility outcomes, however, is more complex as there is evidence, polarized across EU member states, supporting both their positive and negative associations. Therefore, this paper argues that when policies enable women to achieve both childbearing and other possible life paths, education, FLFP, and reproductive behaviors can be positively correlated. Implementing family leave policies, promoting gender equity inside and outside the household, investing in female education, enacting family-supporting tax schemes, and fostering a supportive work environment can enable women to balance their careers and motherhood. Enforcing such policies and harnessing the potential positive association between education, FLFP, and reproductive behaviors across all European countries would be highly beneficial to the EU, which could advance both fertility rates and women’s education and employability. I. Female education, fertility intentions, and actual fertility Because a woman’s education attainment level is regarded as one of the major predictors of family behavior, it is important to investigate the relationship between higher education among women and fertility in Europe (Bongaarts, 1978). Historically, the relationship between female education and fertility has been thought to be negative. Indeed, the postponement of motherhood, which clashes with social stigma around childbearing at mature ages, and low total fertility rates have been consistently considered the result of women’s increased access to education (Sobotka, 2004). Some of the most relevant arguments supporting this assumption are the low fertility rates registered in women’s educational years, due to: (1) the difficulties of balancing family life and academic achievements, which is reinforced by (a) the lack of economic means to raise children and (b) societal conventions deterring women from having children before completing their education (Bhrolcháin & Beaujouan, 2012); and (2) the reduced likelihood of eventual motherhood due to the prospective reproductive window being narrowed by the long period of schooling (Lappegård & Rønsen, 2005). Ultimately, these considerations relate the general deferral of motherhood as a result of higher education with a greater likelihood of remaining childless (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020). Nevertheless, despite the lengthy history of research into the association between education and reproductive outcomes, little is known about how educational disparities impact fertility intentions (Berrington & Pattaro, 2014). Investigating this is extremely relevant as, according to the Theory of Planned Behavior, intentions are the most immediate determinant of the resulting outcomes (Ajzen, 1991). Research suggests that graduate women are equally likely to desire a large family as their less educated counterparts (Berrington & Pattaro, 2014). There is even a positive relationship between women’s education and lifetime fertility intentions at the individual level and throughout the EU (Testa, 2014). However, when analyzing educational disparities in the realization of fertility intentions, an overall tendency to under-reach reproductive goals is observed: highly educated women have a tendency of failing to fulfill their fertility intentions (Berrington & Pattaro, 2014). These findings indicate that, were the institutional framework to allow highly educated women to have large families, women of fertile ages would invest in both their human capital and family size (Testa, 2014). The rationale proposed by the developments in gender theories supports this assumption. According to this view, higher fertility rates are positively correlated with macro- and micro-level gender equality (McDonald, 2000 and Goldscheider et al., 2015). The macro-level deals with overall equality between men and women in broader social, political, and economic structures and institutions. On the other hand, micro-level gender equality focuses on the distribution of rights, responsibilities, and resources between men and women within specific social institutions and relationships (Goldscheider et al., 2015). Despite many European countries achieving almost equal levels of education and employment among men and women (macro-level), the gender equity or Gender Revolution approach claims that, within the household, women still encounter a deeply unequal division of chores with their partners (micro-level). Indeed, Figure 1 shows how disproportional the division of Unpaid Care and Domestic Work (UCDW) between men and women is in the EU, with women’s share being almost double that of their male counterparts, on average. This disequilibrium is rooted in a patriarchal model which imposes a choice between work and family life on potential mothers. Hence, women’s decision to minimize the number of children is due to a trade-off between childbearing and being able to fulfill their academic and career objectives (Goldscheider et al., 2015). In this regard, education has a twofold positive effect on fertility rates as people with higher education have higher lifetime fertility intentions and are more likely to display equity within their relationships (Duvander et al., 2010). Indeed, Duvander and colleagues’ research reveals that higher educational attainment for both parents is connected with an increased probability of having a second or third child in both Norway and Sweden (2010). This shows that highly educated women are better at balancing work and family life since their partners are more likely to take an active role in childcare. Overall, the findings appear to suggest that higher levels of academic achievement might favorably contribute to greater gender equity within the relationship, allowing women to pursue both motherhood and their career aspirations. Figure 1. Hours spent on Unpaid Care and Domestic Work (UCDW) by men and women in the EU[1], 2023. Chart, bar chart Description automatically generated Source: Personal elaboration from the data from OECD. (2023). Gender, Institutions and Development (Edition 2023) [Dataset]. In OECD International Development Statistics. https://doi.org/10.1787/7b0af638-en Despite the historical perception of a negative relationship between education and fertility, there are still cases of favorable relationships between women’s education and reproduction rates. For instance, in Norway and Sweden, women with higher education have more children, on average (Duvander et al., 2010). In this case, long-established family policies in both Norway and Sweden contribute to more egalitarian relationships outside and within the household. This includes policies such as parental leave for approximately twelve months after childbirth with reserved periods for the father, as well as social conventions, and attitudes toward equality among genders, (Duvander et al., 2010). Thus, highly educated women’s desire to build large families is facilitated by the balanced division of family duties characteristic of highly educated partners. This supports the idea that women’s higher education, by fostering gender equality, positively impacts women’s opportunities to balance work and family life, and thus gives them more leeway in childbearing decisions. Therefore, gender equity, in this instance, serves as a mediator driving the positive relationship between female education and reproduction rates. Consequently, gender equity plays a key role in FLFP as well due to the positive impact that it has on women’s capacity to balance their family lives and other life goals. II. Female labor force participation and fertility As in the case of female education, the correlation between female labor force participation rates (FLFPR) and reproductive behavior has commonly been regarded as negative. The theory of the “value of children” is one of the most accredited arguments supporting this relationship. This theory claims that the motivation for motherhood may be greater among women who consider their alternative paths to self-realization, like career development, less appealing (Friedman et al., 1994). In this context, it is assumed that larger families play a more significant role in the lives of less educated women. This is because poorly educated women experience greater difficulties in the labor market (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020) as education is positively associated with earnings (Amidei et al., 2023) and, thus, with FLFP. The negative relationship between FLFPR and fertility is also an economically solid assumption since rising female workforce participation is predicted to increase the opportunity cost of childbirth (Becker, 1992). Although it might seem logical that having a higher income would entail a smaller relative expense of a child, the “income effect” could be offset by two main factors: (1) since motherhood is time-demanding, the opportunity cost of childbearing may increase with career status and its subsequent earnings (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020); (2) wealthier couples might not necessarily have more children but rather higher quality offspring, as research has shown that the trade-off between quality and quantity of children is critical (Becker & Lewis, 1973). “Higher quality” offspring refers to children who display attributes that society values. Intelligence, health, academic achievement, talent, and conduct are examples of such criteria. According to Becker and Lewis (1973), the cost of raising children of higher quality is greater, resulting in a negative association between the quantity and quality of children per household. Therefore, higher FLFPR tend to be associated with lower fertility due to the quantity-quality tradeoff of children. However, current cross-sectional studies and time-series evidence for several countries undermine such reservations, pointing to the effectiveness of work-family reconciliation policies in enabling women to avoid choosing between pursuing either motherhood or their careers (Jaumotte, 2004). For example, despite having high FLFPR, Sweden also has a high number of childbirths relative to the OECD average (Jaumotte, 2004). In particular, Sweden’s comprehensive public policies during the late 1980s and early 1990s successfully increased both FLFPR and fertility. Sundström & Stafford argue that Sweden’s high rates of taxation, separate taxing for spouses, subsidized daycare, flexible working hours, and financial support for couples with children enhanced women’s labor-force participation (1992). In addition, its expanded parental leave program decreased the opportunity cost of having children (Sundström & Stafford, 1992). These schemes incentivized fertility and paid labor for women by lowering the expense of having children while requiring parents to be employed to access full benefits (Sundström & Stafford, 1992). Still, European institutional frameworks often do not feature such policies meant to narrow gender disparities in the labor force. Figure 2 shows that the proportion of women aged 20 to 64 outside the labor force accounts for 1.5% of the total population in the EU, more than three times the share of men, which is less than 0.5%. Moreover, it can be observed that the countries displaying the greatest difference between women’s and men’s inactive population share—namely Italy, Greece, and Spain, respectively with 2.6, 1.7, and 1.5 percentage point differences between the female and the male population—are also among the ones with the highest imbalance in UCDW in Figure 1. Figure 2. European inactive population due to caring responsibilities, by sex, by country, 2022.[2] Source: Personal elaboration from the data from Eurostat. (2023b). Inactive population due to caring responsibilities, by sex, by country, 2022 [Dataset]. In Eurostat. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_05_40/default/table?lang=en As mentioned before, starting from the mid-1980s, the cross-sectional relationship between female employment and fertility within advanced countries like Sweden shifted from negative to positive due to the introduction of new family policies (Oshio, 2019). This included policies aimed at expanding public expenditure on families through benefits such as early childhood education and home support (Oshio, 2019). These measures were put in place to improve the socio-institutional context for parenthood, reduce the incompatibility of mother and worker roles, and raise working women’s earnings (Oshio, 2019). This newly found positive association was also attributed to a shift in a third component, namely social norms and values. Motherhood and women’s careers were no longer regarded as mutually exclusive, thus driving female employment and fertility in the same direction (Engelhardt et al., 2004). This framework is consistent with the findings of the gender theories previously discussed, claiming that fertility increases in countries whose policy schemes promote gender equity (McDonald, 2000). III. The interrelation between female education, FLFP, and fertility In light of the above considerations, it is clear that the interconnection between female education, FLFP, and fertility rates is just as crucial as it is complex. If educational achievement is evaluated as a proxy for socioeconomic standing and income, its positive relationship with reproductive behavior—also referred to as the “income effect” previously discussed—can be explained from an evolutionary standpoint. Wealthier social strata couples display higher fertility rates because they have a greater means to raise children (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020). Nevertheless, throughout this essay, it has been observed that both education and women’s employment lead to ambivalent, and sometimes even polarized, fertility results. The findings of the study by Impicciatore and Tomatis on the correlation of these variables across six European countries highlight an East-West divide. In Eastern European countries, fertility rates are higher among less educated women. In contrast, in the West, more educated women show the highest fertility rates (2020). This cross-country variation is consistent with the literature stating that fertility intentions and actual fertility are not conditional upon just individuals’ preferences, but also on country-specific institutional frameworks (Neyer, 2006). Indeed, it has been observed that fertile-aged women living in a country where employment and family life are not perceived as incompatible are more likely to invest in both education and family size (Testa & Stephany, 2017). The analysis of the relationship of these factors in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries also supports this theory: despite strong FLFP, Nordic countries’ fertility rates are higher than the OECD average; Southern European nations, on the other hand, have both low female involvement rates and low fertility rates (Jaumotte, 2004). Chart, line chart Description automatically generated Figure 3. Labor force participation rate, female (% of female population ages 15–64), Sweden and Italy, 1990–2019. Source: International labor Organization (ILOSTAT). (2021, June). Female labor force participation rate—Sweden, Italy. World Bank Open Data. Retrieved April 30, 2023, from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.FE.ZS?end=2019&locations=SE-IT&start=1990&view=chart Chart, line chart Description automatically generated Figure 4. Total Fertility Rate (births per woman), Sweden and Italy, 1990-2019. Source: United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects. (2022a). Total fertility rate—Sweden, Italy. World Bank Open Data. Retrieved April 30, 2023, from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?end=2019&locations=SE-IT&start=1990 As seen in the comparison of Figures 3 and 4, Sweden and Italy are quintessential examples of this differentiation. The two figures outline that the correlation between TFR and FLFPR can be positive in developed countries. In the case of Italy, both variables are very low, reaching an “ultra-low” TFR of 1.3 births per woman in 2019 and only a 57% FLFPR that same year. The opposite goes for Sweden which, with a 1.7 TFR and an 81% FLFPR, is remarkably above the 2019 EU average of 1.53 births per woman (INED, 2021) and 46.1% FLFPR (World Bank, 2022b). This contrast has been attributed to the diverging institutional contexts of the two countries. In the Italian case, the welfare state and societal norms obstruct the compatibility of female employment and family life (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020). In Italy, inadequate childcare facilities, rigid labor markets, and conventional gender norms constitute severe challenges for women (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020). The absence of affordable and accessible daycare services severely hinders women’s ability to work while raising their children. Additionally, the inflexible labor market raises the opportunity cost of having children, complicating the balance even further (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020). In Sweden, on the other hand, the implementation of policies allowing women to balance work and motherhood, especially through family leave policies and a family-supportive tax scheme, have increased both labor force participation and fertility (Sundström & Stafford, 1992). These findings demonstrate the importance of policies that target more-educated working women when it comes to raising TFR. The relevant literature presented in this essay shows that both the rise and fall in fertility rates in developed countries are driven by people of the same socioeconomic class, namely higher-educated couples, who register greater heterogeneity in fertility outcomes than their less educated counterparts (Berrington & Pattaro, 2014). ________________ IV. The role of family policies in Europe The pivotal role of family policies is highlighted in the previously mentioned examples, such as the reversal of the negative relationship between FLFP and fertility in developed countries during the mid-1980s (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020). Having established this, it is noteworthy to examine how family policies could be utilized to counter the concerns stemming from the current demographic challenges Europe faces. If European measures fostering gender equality worked in the same direction as those aimed at increasing TFR, they could provide a valuable new means to reduce the burden of a declining and aging population on the shrinking working age population. These regulations would allow women who previously stayed at home to care for their children to combine family life with labor force participation. In addition, women who had decided to decrease their family size in order to pursue their careers could then invest in their family life as well (Jaumotte, 2004). Countries, such as Sweden, which were more successful in reaching the convergence of these objectives show that the implementation of general welfare family policies per se is not effective. Rather, benefits should be related to employment and earnings history: fruitful policies are the ones reducing the opportunity cost of parenthood while requiring the parents to have a job in order to access such state subsidies (Sundström & Stafford, 1992). Moreover, as discussed, women in more egalitarian relationships are more prone to capitalize both on their human capital and family size (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020). This trend underlines the importance of the involvement of women’s partners in family care. In this regard, the implementation of family leave policies for both parents is crucial. These measures must also be matched by a cultural shift away from the traditional share of housework and childcare across genders, which is still extremely unbalanced to the disadvantage of women (Figures 1 and 2). If their partner’s contribution in these fields is significant, the family size may grow (Nitsche et al., 2018). The positive relationship between women’s education and the chances of ending up in a relationship with a more equal division of UCDW (Impicciatore & Tomatis, 2020) also emphasizes the relevance of school reforms promoting and investing in female education. Lastly, the benefits stemming from these policies would not only be limited to the increase of TFR in the immediate future. Research shows that the fertility rates of highly educated women may have a spillover effect on the intended fertility of younger highly educated women (Testa, 2013). This feedback spillover pushes younger women to plan for larger families (Testa, 2013). This suggests that as the proportion of highly educated women with children expands, future generations are likely to end up having more children. This is because they have seen previous generations successfully combine work with family life and are thus more inclined to believe in their ability to achieve the same. In addition, being highly educated and living in a country with a high proportion of college-educated women are factors positively correlated with women’s childbearing intentions (Testa & Stephany, 2017). The positive impact of working women having children does not stop at fertility intentions. Social contact has been proven to affect actual fertility behavior among women working in the same business—the transition rates to first pregnancy double within twelve months after a co-worker has given birth (Pink et al., 2014). According to further analysis, such impact of co-workers’ fertility is mediated by social learning (Pink et al., 2014). This phenomenon might explain the positive social contagion that affects couples surrounded by young children—the chances of a couple transitioning into parenthood increase proportionally to the number of young children present in their social network (Lois & Becker, 2014). ________________ V. Discussion and conclusion This essay examined the manifold relationships between female education, FLFP, and fertility rates, while being aware of the density and complexity of the literature on these elements. Although the research on these subjects is extensive, they usually investigate the correlation among only two of the three variables that have been hereby analyzed. This consideration is brought forth in the attempt to highlight a fruitful prompt for future research. A shortcoming which should be acknowledged is that women’s relationship statuses were not accounted for in their reproductive decisions. Indeed, partnership transitions are a crucial proximal driver of fertility, and women who never marry are considerably less likely to fulfill their fertility intentions (Berrington & Pattaro, 2014). Therefore, the marriage market plays a key role in fertility behaviors: as more educated women are more likely to marry, have a lower likelihood of divorcing, and are more likely to have a spouse who is more educated, their fertility rates are likely higher (Testa, 2013). Controlling for this component when dealing with the interrelation of female education, FLFP, and fertility rates is another premise for future research in this field. In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that the relationship between female education, FLFP, and fertility rates in Europe is polarized between Western and Eastern countries and Northern and Southern European member states. The findings additionally highlight that, in developed countries, highly educated working women in fertile ages are equally as likely to desire large-size families as their less educated counterparts. 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Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia do not appear in Figure 1 as no data was collected in those countries. Figure 1 also presents the aggregates of the European continent, the European Union, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the world to show how European countries compare with them. Although EU countries still display a disproportionate division of UCDW between men and women, on average, their distributions are more equal than the world’s; that holds even when considering them individually, except in the cases of Italy and Ireland. [2] The countries represented are the European countries for which the data was collected on both female and male 2022 inactive populations. It is possible to check them looking at the linked dataset.