The IGS Zipline
An occasional blog about IGS happenings, people, and news contributed by Noor Al-Samarri (Class of 2014).
Distinguished Visiting Scholar Sergio Fabbrini Brings
EU Expertise to Cal
Over the last month the IGS community benefitted from the insight and expert analysis of Professor Sergio Fabbrini as he spoke in multiple events on the state and future of the European Union. For those who weren't able to make it to his seminars, or who just want to review his key findings, we have posted his presentation slides and draft research paper entitled, "Intergovernmentalism and Its Outcomes: The Implications of the Euro Crisis on the European Union."
Politics Italian Style
02.13.12
Silvio Berlusconi, who resigned as prime minister of Italy in mid-November of last year, was known to be a controversial leader. Notorious for his bunga bunga parties, Berlusconi resigned after the loss of his parliamentary majority and amidst a host of financial problems related to the European debt crisis. He remains one of the wealthiest men in Italy.
On Tuesday, IGS Visiting Scholar Sergio Fabbrini, Director of Italy's LUISS School of Government, where he is also a professor of political science and international relations, delivered a lecture on Berlusconi to a packed audience.
Despite his readily-apparent inadequacies as a leader (abuse of powers, money laundering, and more), Berlusconi was able to harness his influence as a media mogul - he owns Mediaset, Italy's largest broadcasting company - in order to usher in a new era in Italian politics.
Professor Fabbrini explained the assets of the "personalization of politics" which Berlusconi famously undertook. "Berlusconi presented himself as the founding father of Italian tele-democracy," or, democracy in which television plays a defining role, Fabbrini explained. "He was the epitome of personalization - he wasn't the expression of a party ... he invented his own party." Along with his own party, Berlusconi heralded a new politics based on personality - which may have aided in his longevity as a political leader, Fabbrini said.
He noted that Berlusconi's power over telemedia allowed him to continuously criticize established power structures and gave him widespread control of public discourse, which helped him retain popularity and power.
Berlusconi is Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Minister.
Senator Richard Ackerman Weighs in on the Republican Primary
02.02.12
Florida's primary, on Tuesday, January 31st, marked the beginning of the real Republican primary season for many in the party, including Cal in Sac Legislator in Residence Dick Ackerman, a California State Senator (1995 - 2008).
Ackerman noted that Mitt Romney's win in Florida is especially telling because of the diverse electorate in the state, and its large turnout (1.7 million vs. South Carolina's 600,000).
"There are a broader variety of folks - a wider range from liberal to conservative, more moderates. You have retired people, immigrants - many Cubans and Puerto Ricans - new citizens," Ackerman said. "In this way, Florida provides a better snapshot of the race on a national scale."
According to Ackerman, basic campaign organization, debates and especially advertisements greatly impacted Florida's election results.
Romney spent more than 12 million dollars on advertising in Florida. While nearly all of the campaign advertisements in Florida were negative, Ackerman said there was a distinct difference in delivery.
"Gingrich's ads tended to be more harsh and mean-spirited. Romney's got better traction because of their tone - he doesn't come off as mean-spirited while Gingrich does."
As for whom he supports, Ackerman says it's no secret. Having endorsed Romney in 2008, he said he plans to support the candidate again this year.
Congratulations, Synar Winners!
01.26.12
Congratulations to the winners of this year's Mike Synar Graduate Research Fellowship! Five awards of $3000 each are granted annually to noteworthy UC Berkeley graduate students writing a dissertation on an aspect of American politics.
Abby Wood (Political Science) is examining how a state government's political breakdown - the division or unity between political parties - can result in stronger whistleblower laws.
A lawyer by training, Wood became interested in corruption issues while doing international work with the World Bank, USAID and the United Nations. Astounded by corruption abroad, she was inspired to turn her focus inward to the United States.
Alexa Koenig (Law) will use interviews with Guantanamo detainees to analyze the ways that prisoners' identities - gender, nationality, religious or ethnic affiliations - and treatment during incarceration impact their experiences and interpretations of cruelty.
Long interested in the perspectives of marginalized peoples, Koenig hopes to consider how the law can be used to prevent prison abuse by pursuing the concept of impermissible cruelty in political-military prisons from the vantage point of former prisoners whose stories are often left untold.
Trevor Gardner (Sociology) is interested in the social conceptions of race and criminality - who do we perceive as a threat? How are these biases reflected in our system of incarceration?
These questions have led him to pursue a dissertation in which he looks at sanctuary cities - localities within the United States which follow practices to protect illegal immigrants. Gardner's dissertation analyzes the divergence between sanctuary cities, which reject the dominant trope of the threatening migrant, and claims by federal enforcement agencies that local systems must abide by their standards.
Gregory Elinson (Political Science) is examining the ways in which organized business and labor shaped the development of American law and legal institutions between 1947 and 1970.
This was a period in which organized business and labor - that is, business and union labor coalitions - were the nation's major economic-oriented interest groups.
Gene Zubovich (History) is pursuing a largely undocumented facet of social activism in the United States - the emergence of Protestant interest in social issues, particularly in civil rights and desegregation.
Zubovich hopes that by charting the emergence, development and institutionalization of a "liberal Protestant vision" in the 1940s - through conferences, meetings, textual debates and the growth of interracial churches - his dissertation while provide a clearer understanding of a major source of social movements in the 20th century and present day.
Washington Interns Learn about the Nation - and Themselves
01.20.12
Each semester, IGS' Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service funds two undergraduate interns as they pursue a full course load and an internship in the nation's capitol. Recipients receive a $2,000 award to help defray the financial burden of studying for a semester at the UC Washington Center.
"The scholarship really helped," said Kansola Oshodi, a senior studying Political Science and Rhetoric who was awarded a scholarship last fall. "We were mostly unpaid interns and the scholarship acted as a kind of supplemental experience. It's nice not to have to think about funds in addition to work and school."
Oshodi interned at the US State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor during fall 2011. In addition to enjoying the autonomy of the work, and learning how to balance the myriad and intense responsibilities of a student and a working intern, Oshodi was able to explore her personal interests on the job market during her time in the Capitol.
Originally from Nigeria, she moved to the United States as a young child and returned to her home country as a teenager before coming to Cal.
"When I went (back) to Nigeria, the importance of human rights was vivid," Oshodi reflected. "The negative effect of this lack of human rights was really salient when I was there. I saw the importance of providing people with opportunities for success."
While working at the Bureau, Oshodi evaluated human rights records and saw how issues like those she keenly observed as a teenager in Nigeria play out in U.S. foreign policy.
Enjoying her time so much, and reaping the opportunities of her internship, Oshodi has extended her stay in DC. This semester, she is working as a staff assistant at the Bureau and moving further along in her goal to work in foreign policy and international relations post graduation, this spring.
This semester's Washington Interns are Ryan Barlow, a Senior majoring in Political Science, and Silvia Bruckback, a Junior studying Political Economy and African American Studies. While Barlow is excited to be interning with the Government Accountability Office's Trade Team, Bruckback will be working at the Disability Rights Education Fund.
You can find more information about this scholarship, and others, at the Matsui Center's website, here.
The Ascendency of China's Economy: Too Big To Fail
12.21.11
Over 250 UC Berkeley students, faculty and community members crowded into the Bancroft Hotel on November 29 to listen to - and question - the remarks of World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President Justin Yifu Lin. This event was co-sponsored by IGS.
Lin laid out a simple schema to understand China's progress from a largely agrarian nation to the "workshop of the world" it is today. Lin proposed that China - which is slated to become the most powerful economy on the planet within the next 20 years - can attribute its extreme growth to its fervent industrialization process, began in 1978. Before undergoing reforms, the Chinese economy was state-controlled. Private enterprise was rare, as was foreign trade, and the trifling industrial production sector was state owned. In 1979, due to export expansion and quick-fire technological innovation, as well as agrarian reform, China started its steep economic accession. While net exports comprised less than ten percent of the Chinese economy in 1979, China's trade volume has magnified by 144 times since, Lin said. Today, imports and exports represent 65 percent of China's total economy.
Throughout the talk, Lin straddled his roles as a prominent member of the World Bank - which aims to reduce poverty worldwide - and as a Chinese citizen who cares for his country. In 1979, soon after reforms began, Lin left his home country of Taiwan and swam 2,000 meters to mainland China. "It is my belief that returning to the motherland (China) is a historical inevitability," he said. "It is also an economic choice, reflecting economic interests."
Since that time, it seems that Lin has held firm faith in China and its economy. Despite noting that the World Bank's development strategies have shifted from the one-size-fits-all Washington Consensus strategies that dominated the 1990s, he is enthusiastic about ways in which China's growth can serve as a model for other developing countries. One development asset he lauded throughout his speech was the latecomer advantage. "Your technology is located within a global technology frontier," he said. "If a developing country knows how to tap into that potential, then their rate of technological changes can be much faster than that of developing countries."
Because developing countries have a ready market and technologies ready to apply, Lin believes that they, like China, can catch up to or surpass the West's looming post-industrial economies. China's astonishing average nine percent annual growth rate speaks volumes about its success so far. Lin believes that soon China will serve as a prime example of economic progress for the world.
You can view the entire talk and Q&A session here.
Meet Benjamin Leclere, IGS Visiting Scholar from France
Benjamin Leclere, a 28 year old geography teacher from Paris, France, arrived at IGS in September on a mission to spend this year engaged in original research. His goal is to conduct a cross-cultural study of indigenous tribes to better understand the issues of aboriginal land privileges and basic rights. His first case study is of the Noongar people, who live in the Perth Metropolitan area of Western Australia. The second case study he is researching here at IGS is of the Ohlone and Pomo peoples who reside in the San Francisco Bay Area. Topics such as land rights, federal recognition, tribal sovereignty, and Indian gaming as a tool for political and economic empowerment will be analyzed in the course of his study.
With the help of a prestigious Lurcy Fellowship, which seeks to promote scholarly activities leading to an exchange of knowledge between Americans and Europeans about their respective societies, Leclere is using a geo-political approach to his study of the two native groups. That is, he is examining the tensions and rivalries arising as these two indigenous groups attempt to gain power over their land and -- they contend -- their cultural heritage. Examining the way indigenous peoples navigate their rights to a connection to land that now exists more in memory than tradition is important. Little scholarly work has been published about indigenous peoples living in urban areas and this research will hopefully shed some light on how California urban Indian tribes compare in relation their Australian counterparts.
Leclere will continue his field research at IGS through the spring as he continues to develop his pioneering comparative study in pursuit of a graduate degree in political geography from the University of Paris 8. Leclere joins the ranks of 20 other visiting scholars who together reside at IGS and come to Berkeley to pursue their research aims and contribute to the vibrant research community in Moses Hall.
Meet the Percy Awardees, 2011
Each year, the Institute of Governmental Studies awards up to six grants of $500 each to outstanding undergraduate students who are conducting research on an area of American politics such as public opinion, civic participation, social movements and public policy issues.
Former Illinois Senator Charles H. Percy, for whom the award is named, was Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and served in Congress for 18 years during the 1960s and 70s. An outspoken Republican, he was more moderate than figures such as Richard Nixon, and was known for his entrepreneurial spirit and business skills. Senator Percy passed away in September of this year at the age of 91.
The remaining application deadline for the current academic year is February 8, 2012; more details can be found on the Percy Grant web pages.
Here are thumbnail sketches of five of the 2011 recipients:
Maia Wollins
Maia Wollins is a Middle Eastern Studies major. Her project, entitled Narratives of the 2003 War: Iraqi Refugees & US Veterans (the NOW Project), is for her senior thesis.
In her project, Wollins is examining the aftermath of the Iraq war on the lives of Iraqi refugees now living in the US and US veterans who fought in Iraq, who live in the bay area. Specifically, Wollins hopes to explore the way that these experiences have shaped success in institutes of higher education and their professional development.
"For the veterans, the challenge is entering into a civilian world they came from. For Iraqis, the challenge is entering into an entirely new civilian world," Wollins said. "For both there's this element of integration or reintegration into society in California."
Wollins is collecting stories from members of both parties in the hopes that she can illustrate their common humanity.
"I love that (this project) challenges people," she said. "It shows the humanity of the different populations that I'm looking at and how their stories connect."
Mathew Kintz
Mathew Kintz, a senior studying Political Science and Psychology, who is interested in pursuing the effects of marijuana dispensaries on communities, and to what extent they can be regulated in order to better serve communities and customers. His project is titled Assessing the Regulation of Marijuana Dispensaries in California.
Dispensaries are often portrayed as a blight on communities by the media and by many public officials who say they lead to increased incidents of crime and adolescent drug use in communities, Kintz explained.
Kintz's thesis is that better regulations and more care could lead to better results with marijuana dispensaries.
"If cities were responsible from the get go, they would have fewer problems."
A member of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Kintz said he has always been interested in broader drug policy reform.
"I think the war on drugs has been a crime," he said. "But I don't think the answer is fire all cops and legalize all drugs. I think with research and sensible policy we can pull ourselves out of this mess that the 'war on drugs' has created."
Amanda Phatdouang
Amanda Phatdouang is a senior studying Anthropology, and has received a grant to help her pursue a project called Deinstitutionalization: The Scope and Magnitude of the Seriously Mentally Ill.
Phatduong is working on the project for a health research group called Public Citizens whom she is interning for in Washington DC as part of the university's UCDC program.
In her project, she is examining the consequences of criminalizing the seriously mentally ill.
Many jails must handle people with serious mental conditions such as schizophrenia and manic depressiveness - illnesses they are not equipped to handle.
This system, which is difficult to navigate, may also be some individuals's only chance to receive treatment and resources they lack.
"The sherrif's office and law enforcement have now become these de facto social workers," Phatduong said.
Andrew Postal
Andrew Postal is a senior pursuing Political Science and Environmental Economics and Policy. While watching Republican congressional candidates' campaigns, Postal became fascinated with the way they presented themselves as both black and Republican in a party which a majority of black voters do not elect into power.
"I'm interested in the role of the black republican candidate -- how they campaign, how they appeal to voters," Postal explained.
In order to examine this question of how black identity or personal identity jibe with Republican identity, Postal will be looking at campaign materials foam races over the past 40 years or so, as well as speeches and news articles.
Postal's project - his senior thesis - is called African Americans and the Republican Party: Bridging the Gap Between Race and Partisan Identity.
Sarah Weiner
Sarah Weiner is a senior studying Political Science. Her research project, which she is performing for her senior thesis is entitled Defining Ethanol Policy: The Influence of the Media on Congressional Issue Framing. A devoted member of the Cal Debate team, Weiner became interested in agricultural issues after her freshman year, when the debate topic was agricultural subsidies. Ethanol subsidies were a relevant subject area, and Weiner was impressed with the interdisciplinary nature of the issues the subsidies touched - in addition to agriculture, Weiner found it important to think about food prices, trade agreements, energy security and other hot topics while studying the subsidies.
Using this fraught policy area as a foil, Weiner will examine where Congressional issue frames originate and how they are transmitted through media. "My goal is to map the process of 'issue redefinition' by both the media and members of Congress in an attempt to discover whether the media was able to re-frame the ethanol debate for political elites." She hopes to look not only at the way this issue is framed by the media for reception to the public, but the way in which media narratives can affect the way political elites - those in power - are influenced to prioritize issues.
Sophia Wang
Sophia Wang is a UC Berkeley senior pursuing Political Science and Sociology. Her research project, Civic and Political Engagement of Chinese Americans in Ethnic Suburbs, will explore why Chinese Americans -- who tend to be well educated and situated high on the socioeconomic latter -- tend not to be politically active, a paradox to popularly-accepted political theory, in which education, wealth and political participation are positively correlated.
Wang, who was drawn to the question of political participation in ethnic suburbs because she grew up in one, and was struck by the distinctiveness of the space after leaving for college. She intends to explore whether shared resources and experiences in these tightly-knit communities contribute to increased political participation, or whether the communal nature of ethnic suburbs provide such a sense of comfort that residents do not feel the need to participate politically.
Meet Andrew Nevis ('12): Cal-In-Sacramento's Student Director
November 14, 2011
Each summer 30 undergraduates from UC Berkeley head up to Sacramento for eight weeks of intense work in, and around, the state capitol as part of the Cal-in-Sacramento Fellowship Program (Cal-in-Sac).
Andrew Nevis (Class of 2012) participated in the program last summer, and will return to Sacramento next summer as the Student Director of Cal-in-Sac. Nevis is a campaign volunteer working to help elect Mitt Romney as President.
"I went into Cal-in-Sac kind of having an idea that I wanted to do political things when I graduated . it kind of confirmed that was what I wanted to do," said Nevis.
It was the 2003 recall election in California, when then-governor Gray Davis was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger that first piqued Nevis' interest in politics.
"The idea that people can just take control of their government and essentially throw someone out of their government in the middle of their term was really fascinating to me," Nevis said.
Like most Cal-in-Sac fellows Nevis chose to intern in a legislative office, he worked for Republican Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher. A large part of his time was spent performing bill analysis - looking at bills coming to Assemblyman's Fletcher's office from the senate and recommending how Assemblyman Fletcher should vote.
Nevis also had the opportunity to work on two research projects for the Assemblyman, on education and firefighting resources in the state, in addition to the requisite phone-answering and letter-drafting duties.
Particularly encouraging to Nevis was the negligible age gap between himself and the staff members in Assemblyman Fletcher's office.
"My direct supervisor this summer was two years older than me," Nevis noted. "It's not like you're a child among adults - this makes (politics) seem like a possible career choice."
Unlike any experiences he had in high school or previously in college, Nevis was able to work as an equal among peers and build relationships with (hopefully) future co-workers. Networking and relationship building are essential when working in politics.
"In politics I think people overlook the need to socialize develop really deep connections with people," Nevis said, adding, "It's not enough to read the newspaper every day - you really have to build relationships and network, get to know people."
Cal-in-Sacramento is run by the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service. In addition to the Cal-in-Sac program the Matsui Center also offers a Local Government Fellowship and Washington Internships called UCDC.
Affordable Care Act Debate
November 1, 2011
Last Wednesday, October 26, an anticipatory audience of 200 filled the Commonwealth Club to witness a debate on the constitutionality of Obama's Affordable Care Act. The debate, moderated by UC Berkeley Law Professor Jesse Choper, was part of a year-long series held by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies on the political and economic facets of healthcare reform, implementation and feasibility, sponsored by the Blue Shield of California Foundation and Kaiser Permanente.
Laurence Tribe, Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, argued in favor of the affordable care act, while Roger Pilon - founder and director of libertarian think-tank the Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies - argued against what he referred to as "Obamacare."
The debate proved illustrative of the arguments used by those on the left and right of the nation's political sphere throughout the lead-up to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law over a year ago by President Obama.
In his opening statement, Tribe illuminated the economic burden that is placed on taxpayers and insurance purchasers by the millions of uninsured in the nation. His main argument is that the individual decisions of those who choose not to purchase insurance - or who cannot afford to - cause an undue burden on other citizens, placing these decisions squarely in the public rather than the private arena. Thus, he argued, Congress may regulate this enormous part of the market under the power of the Commerce clause in Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution.
The clause gives Congress the power to regulate commerce in order to "provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States."
For those who rejected this argument, Tribe also put forward the Necessary and Proper clause and overall taxing powers given Congress.
"(The Act) does not prevent people from exercising their rights (not to engage in healthcare); it doesn't impose anything on anyone," Tribe said, adding that to argue against the reforms would be to act "as though we were islands unto ourselves."
While Tribe couched his arguments in economic terms, Pilon took a different approach.
Calling Tribe's promotion of federal regulation "a typical approach of people in Post New Deal thinking," Pilon argued against Congress's broad Constitutional authority to regulate the economy, or society much at all.
Harking back to the New Deal Era (perhaps significantly, the last time the economy has been in a state comparable to today's) Pilon stated that the powers of the federal government were limited until Roosevelt's Progressive Era.
"The Declaration of Independence protects our rights as individuals with little Constitutional intervention," Pilon said. "The powers of federal government are few and defined."
In a microcosm of the national debate around healthcare reform, Pilon and Tribe stuck to their arguments, never venturing too far from their respective spheres of arguments. However, unlike much of the national debate, both spoke intelligently before an interested audience eager to engage with - and question - both sides.
A video of the entire debate is available on YouTube.
Mill Valley Film Festival and the Life of Governor Pat Brown
October 19, 2011
Ethan Rarick, Director of the Robert T. Matsui Center on Politics & Public Service at the Institute of Governmental Studies, was consulted with and interviewed in a new documentary about the life and times of Governor Pat Brown - the father of Governor Jerry Brown. In 2005 Rarick published the first biography of the legendary governor, California Rising: The Life and Times of Pat Brown.
For seven years Rarick sifted through Brown's diary, love letters he wrote to his wife, interviews and an array of historical sources to tell the story of the governor, and the era of American politics at the time.
The film, California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown, premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival last week. It was directed by Sascha Rice -- Brown's granddaughter -- and through home video clips it melds the portrait of a family man with the politician. Another of Brown's granddaughters, Hilary Armstrong, served as executive producer of the film.
What follows is a Q & A with Ethan Rarick about the film, and the man who is its subject.
So, what is your involvement in the film?
My book and the film are about the same topic and I do know Sascha and Hilary who are two of Pat's granddaughters who made the movie. They would occasionally call me up when they were doing research. They would be looking for some document or some source on a given topic and I would try to point them in the right direction. I didn't have anything to do with making the movie, but I was interviewed for it. I think it's very good but I don't want to take any credit for it.
What makes Pat Brown a "legendary" governor?
I think Pat Brown is remembered so fondly now for two reasons. One of which is to his credit, and one really isn't. First, I think he's remembered fondly because he was a good governor and he was a good governor really because he believed that government could do good things. He did not believe as Ronald Reagan said later that government was the problem, not the solution. Pat thought that government could be part of the solution, and so he was an advocate for government in a way that we haven't had in the last 30 or 40 years. Bill Clinton said the era of big government is over. Democrats have started to sound a little defensive about big government in the last 30 or 40 years. Even among Democrats, nobody today really talks about the ways in which government can do things to enrich our society and make our society better, and therefore the anti-government side of the argument often wins by default. Pat was someone who believed in government doing good things and who talked about that - who sold that to voters. And so as a result, while he was governor the California government did a lot of good things - invested in universities, invested in public water projects, invested in public education - and those things built infrastructure that we still enjoy and cherish.
The second part is that he's remembered well because the post-war era - the 50's and early 60's - was an incredibly affluent time in California. The nation as a whole was incredibly rich. California was richer than the rest of the nation. People were moving here in great numbers, and there was an enormous amount of optimism and confidence. People remember that time fondly because things were booming and it seems in retrospect like a kind of "golden era."
Some of this wasn't Pat's doing; he didn't singlehandedly make the economy boom and make people move here. But he gets credit for that because he was governor during a time when the state was prosperous and growing.
What lasting effects on the position has he had?
I don't know that I would say he had lasting effects on the position of governor. I would say that some of the stuff that Pat did as governor had lasting effects on the state.
For example, while Pat was governor for two terms, the state built three new University of California campuses -- San Diego, Irvine, and Santa Cruz. They also built eight new CSU campuses, and many new community colleges. Since Pat was governor, the state has opened one more UC campus (Merced) and a few more CSU campuses, but not eight in any one eight-year period. So, that would be an example of something he did which continues to affect the state, because those university campuses have grown into major research universities that educate a lot of young people, that conduct important research, that have a positive economic impact on the state.
Another example would be the California State Water Project that dams the Feather River in the North, and then channels the water South for 500 miles in a canal to farms in the Central Valley and then to Los Angeles. Whether people like large water projects or not - and some people don't because of the environmental impacts - that project continues to provide an enormous amount of water to farms and cities. And without that project the state would be a very different place. That's another example of something they did in that era that changed the state with lasting effects.
Since Pat was governor the population of the state has about doubled. The things they did back then have allowed that doubling of population growth. They've allowed us to educate more young people. They've allowed us to build more housing. All of the infrastructure they built is what has allowed us to deal with the population growth in the last 40 years.
Rice used home videos as well as archival footage to illustrate the life of the governor. Did that help her storytelling?
One of the things I liked about the movie is that Sascha narrates it and is very open about the fact that Pat was her grandfather. I think she did a good job of being fairly objective and including some material that I suspect some family members would not have included. She has a section, for instance, about how her mother Kathleen Brown ran for governor and lost. So I give her credit for that. But it's also true that the film is a subjective portrayal of Pat done by two of his granddaughters. I think that's a strength of the film, but I'm not sure that we'd want the only history of an important California figure done by his family members. So I think my book provides a different perspective that doesn't come directly from Pat's family members. But I think it's good to have both of those things. I like her movie because it's a very personal portrait of Pat's governorship and life.
How does Jerry compare with his father?
He's very different than his dad. The biggest difference is that Pat's politics were formed by the New Deal and by Franklin Roosevelt. Pat's perception that Roosevelt helped lead the country out of the Great Depression gave him this sense that government could do great things, gave him a sense that government could help average people overcome great problems.
That was mixed together with the fact that in the 1920s through the 1960s -- the bulk of Pat's adult life -- there was very little focus on environmental concerns. The modern environmental movement didn't really start until the mid- to late-1960s. So Pat's generation had very much a sense of boundless optimism, that there were no limits to what was possible. And this was possible both because they believed government could accomplish great things and they had no sense of environmental limits.
Jerry begins his political career just as two things are happening. One, the start of the environmental movement (he was first elected to office in 1969, which was also the year of the first Earth Day). So he begins his career as the modern environmental movement gets underway. He also begins his career just as the oil shocks of the 1970s start to slow down the long-term growth rate of the US economy, just as incomes begin to stagnate when adjusted for inflation. So the huge economic growth following World War II to the early 70s begins to slow down. Jerry is someone who sees many more limits to what is possible.
