Latinos and Environmental Justice: Examining the Link between Degenerative Policy, Political Representation, and Environmental Policy Implementation

Abstract

The theory of social construction and policy design is insightful for exploring the circumstances in which the allocation of policy benefits and burdens is attributed to the feed‐forward effect of degenerative policy that institutionalizes bias and reinforces the prevailing categorization and embedded social meaning regarding target populations. However, this theoretical framework has not been broadly adopted to analyze the environment‐related phenomena. With a nationwide, block‐group‐level sample, this study examines the extent to which degenerative policies pertaining to immigrants influence state agencies' environmental regulatory outputs for predominantly Latino communities. Results show that in the states with moderately to most restrictive immigrant policy and high levels of Latino representation in legislatures, the rigorousness of government agencies' compliance monitoring activities decreases for Latino neighborhoods of environmental justice concern, as states' policy stance toward immigrants becomes more unfavorable. More Latino elected officials do not bolster policy implementation efforts for the vulnerable communities or offset the backlash effect of immigrant policy.

Deportation Discretion: Tiered Influence, Minority Threat, and “Secure Communities” Deportations

“…Indeed, Hispanics do not uniformly advocate against restrictive policies (Newton, 2000;Pantoja & Segura, 2003;Pantoja, Ramirez, & Segura, 2001;Stringer, 2016). Furthermore, locations with more Hispanic elected officials do not necessarily shield vulnerable Hispanic communities from negative policy outcomes (Liang, 2018). Related research also finds Hispanics may not necessarily view immigration issues as a priority in places where Hispanic proportions are high (Valenzuela & Stein, 2014).…”

Representative Bureaucracy, Distributional Equity, and Environmental Justice

“…By connecting environmental policy implementation to representative bureaucracy, this study sheds light on issues of bureaucratic representation, distributional equity, and environmental justice. Our findings suggest that research on representative bureaucracy should consider environmental policy a notable and much‐needed empirical setting, as this policy area has increasingly been shaped by the politics of identity, a contested discourse on distribution and redistribution of benefits and costs, and the “feed‐forward effect of degenerative policy that institutionalizes bias and reinforces the prevailing categorization and embedded social meaning regarding target populations” (Liang , 60). Given that the mechanisms underlying representative bureaucracy and distributional equity are generic in theory (e.g., the salience of identity, administrative discretion, preexisting inequity, zero‐sum policy outputs), it is reasonable to conclude that our findings have broad, relevant implications for future studies on the representation‐equity link in areas other than race/ethnicity and in different national contexts.…”

“…Because of the lack of binding, clear, consistent, and substantive elements in the federal government's environmental justice policy (Bullock, Ard, and Saalman ; Konisky ), the implementation of general environmental policies (e.g., enforcing national pollution control regulations) sheds critical light on people's well‐being and government's commitment to environmental equity (Cory, Rahman, and Aradhyula ; Konisky ; Liang , ). Public administrators wield broad discretion in implementing environmental policy (Rinfret and Pautz ; Waterman, Rouse, and Wright ).…”

“…First, government agencies’ policy outputs for the focal group are considered one of the pivotal forms of active representation by the public bureaucracy (Fernandez, Malatesta, and Smith ; Hindera ; Kennedy ; Kim ; Wilkins ). Second, the policy implementation practices of federal or state agencies in charge of environmental protection have been broadly used in the environmental justice literature as an indicator of fair treatment of different social groups and communities (Konisky and Reenock ; Liang , ; Opp ; Spina ; Teodoro, Haider, and Switzer ).…”

Editorial Note

“…In the third manuscript in the series, Liang () focuses on the interplay between states’ immigration policies and monitoring and enforcement of environmental laws in Latino communities. She hypothesizes that states that exhibit moderately to highly restrictive immigration policies will provide fewer services to Latino populations, including environmental activities.…”