Empowerment Through Design: Institutional Remedies to Environmental Injustice

46 Pages Posted: 16 Jul 2012 Last revised: 21 Jun 2014

See all articles by David Konisky

David Konisky

Indiana University Bloomington - School of Public & Environmental Affairs (SPEA)

Christopher M. Reenock

Florida State University - Department of Political Science

Date Written: 2012

Abstract

Scholarship on race- and class-based disparities in regulatory outcomes has failed to provide a theoretically-grounded account of this bias’ origin. We address this shortcoming by providing a micro-level explanation of how demographics influence compliance bias, or the failure to detect noncompliant firms. We propose that regulatory compliance is best understood as a dual-agent – firm and regulatory officer – production function. In this production, we argue that community mobilization and agency decision-making authority shape bureaucrats’ incentives to report noncompliance. We test our argument with an original dataset on community mobilization and agency structure that delineates the political costs and benefits of state regulatory officers implementing the U.S. Clean Air Act. Using detection controlled estimation, we find that while certain communities are vulnerable to compliance bias, such bias is mitigated in the presence of either politically mobilized communities or decentralized enforcement authority within the implementing agency. ct will be provided by author.

Suggested Citation

Konisky, David and Reenock, Christopher M., Empowerment Through Design: Institutional Remedies to Environmental Injustice (2012). APSA 2012 Annual Meeting Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2108634

David Konisky (Contact Author)

Indiana University Bloomington - School of Public & Environmental Affairs (SPEA) ( email )

1315 East Tenth Street
Bloomington, IN 47405
United States

Christopher M. Reenock

Florida State University - Department of Political Science ( email )

567 Bellmy Building
Tallahassee, FL 32306
United States
850-644-4542 (Phone)
850-644-1367 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://mailer.fsu.edu/~creenock/

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