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The U.S. federal government has increasingly relied on tax incentives to leverage private investment to spur economic redevelopment in poor communities. One such popular program is the New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC), established by the U.S. Congress in 2000. Community development entities transfer NMTC tax credits to private investors in exchange for equity and capital investments in qualifying projects in low‐income census tracts. Despite its popularity among private financiers and although nearly $40 billion has been allocated for NMTC, little scholarly attention has been paid to the program. We aim to close this information gap by describing the historical context under which NMTC emerged; detailing the practical elements and process of NMTC; and identifying critical, unanswered questions about this evolving relationship between the U.S. federal government and private investors. We use NMTC as a lens to consider the impact of the private sector's surging role in public redevelopment efforts in low‐income communities, and offer some suggestions for governing NMTC and similar partnerships moving forward.

Graduate students in political science who have spent significant time in the workforce before doctoral studies encounter different challenges than students who matriculate immediately or soon after undergraduate study. In deciding to pursue a Ph.D., seasoned professionals may face significant financial opportunity costs, cultural re-entry issues, familial responsibilities, or geographical constraints. Additionally, the academic culture at R1 universities can sometimes undervalue how prior professional experience helps inform a rich research agenda. Yet, the maturity and professionalism older graduate students bring to the classroom and in shouldering additional departmental responsibilities benefit doctoral programs. This chapter offers some suggestions for seasoned professionals thinking about pursuing a Ph.D. at the application stage, navigating graduate studies, and contributing to their academic departments. This manuscript is part of Strategies for Navigating Graduate School and Beyond, a forthcoming volume for those interested in pursuing graduate education in political science (Fall 2022 publication).

AbstractThe American states offer a wealth of variation across time and space to understand the sources, dynamics, and consequences of public policy. As laboratories of socioeconomic and political differences, they enable both wide-scale assessments of change and studies of specific policy choices. To leverage this potential, we constructed and integrated a database of thousands of state-year variables for designing and executing social research: the Correlates of State Policy Project (CSPP). The database offers one-stop shopping for accurate and reliable data, allows researchers to assess the generalizability of the relationships they uncover, enables assessment of causal inferences, and connects state politics researchers to larger research communities. We demonstrate CSPP's use and breadth, as well as its limitations. Through an applied empirical approach familiar to the state politics literature, we show that researchers should remain attentive to regional variation in key variables and potential lack of within-state variation in independent and dependent variables of interest. By comparing commonly used model specifications, we demonstrate that results are highly sensitive to particular research design choices. Inferences drawn from state politics research largely depend on the nature of over time variation within and across states and the empirical leverage it may or may not provide.

Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) telemetry has recently been adapted for locating PIT-tagged fish in shallow waters using portable detectors. In the present study, we tested this method for adult amphibians (Pyrenean brook salamanders, Calotriton asper) PIT-tagged with 12-mm transponders in a headwater rocky stream. PIT telemetry performances were compared with a conventional hand-capture method, i.e. visual searching and overturning movable stones in the streambed. The mean efficiency of the portable detector (88.2% ± 5.2, s.e.) was significantly higher than hand-capture (51.1% ± 6.4) and the operator progressed, on average, four times faster. Time efficiencies were, on average, 0.92 (±0.15) and 0.12 (±0.04) adult salamanders per minute with the portable detector and by hand-capture, respectively. The efficiency of the portable detector was negatively correlated with the percentage of large stones on the streambed. The time needed to prospect a section was positively correlated with the abundance of PIT-tagged adult salamanders, spring inlets and undercut banks. Because PIT telemetry is less disruptive than hand-capture for both salamanders and their habitat, it is a promising and non-disruptive method for developing studies on the ecology and management of amphibians in shallow waters.

Understanding how changes in ecosystem properties feedback into land-use decisions remains relatively uncharted territory for land science in general and for ecosystem service science in particular. In Europe, debates on rural development can be framed in terms of opposing socio-political discourses. These include formulations of desirable, acceptable and unacceptable changes that contribute to changing the planning- and policy-based drivers of land-use decisions. We explored the relationships between such discourses and local descriptions of a mountain grassland area in the central French Alps documented using semi-structured interviews. We found that descriptions focused on either the (1) productive functions of the local grasslands, (2) the aesthetic qualities of the surrounding landscape or (3) its cultural heritage value (testimony to past land-use patterns and practices). We interpreted these descriptions as social representations and found that they were unequally represented in existing socio-political discourses identified at the European level, thus illustrating some strong political barriers between local perceptions of landscape changes and the policy drivers of those changes.

Understanding how changes in ecosystem properties feedback into land-use decisions remains relatively uncharted territory for land science in general and for ecosystem service science in particular. In Europe, debates on rural development can be framed in terms of opposing socio-political discourses. These include formulations of desirable, acceptable and unacceptable changes that contribute to changing the planning- and policy-based drivers of land-use decisions. We explored the relationships between such discourses and local descriptions of a mountain grassland area in the central French Alps documented using semi-structured interviews. We found that descriptions focused on either the (1) productive functions of the local grasslands, (2) the aesthetic qualities of the surrounding landscape or (3) its cultural heritage value (testimony to past land-use patterns and practices). We interpreted these descriptions as social representations and found that they were unequally represented in existing socio-political discourses identified at the European level, thus illustrating some strong political barriers between local perceptions of landscape changes and the policy drivers of those changes.