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Military-industrial practices have left widespread contamination affecting land, water, air, and human and nonhuman bodies. This article uses decolonial analysis to examine the racial-colonial foundations that underlie contemporary efforts to reuse former U.S. military land for development projects. Interrelating scholarship on security and development with that of militarization and political ecology, I use "geosocial spectacle" to probe the material and pedagogical governance, frontier logics, and colonial aesthetics that emerge through land remediation and redevelopment. Featuring two military sites within U.S. base closure and realignment—the U.S. Front Range area of Colorado and former U.S. unincorporated territory of the Panama Canal Zone—the article delineates and expounds on two types of U.S. military land conversions: brownfields and biodiversity recreation. The article interrelates the conversion of contaminated land in both cases as waste frontier that facilitates ongoing cycles of land repossession as a form of dispossession and containment or denial of war. The article concludes by advocating for decolonial studies of the global color line entrenched by the U.S. Pentagon's ongoing climate colonialism, to subvert the compartmentalized harms of war and capitalist extraction, and to galvanize explicitly anticolonial, antiracist land reuse and governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can members of Congress escape blame for bad news in their districts? To maximise their chances of re-election, legislators seek to maintain their electoral connections with voters, defending key district interests. Could actions by successive presidential administrations over the past three decades to close obsolete military bases have undermined such efforts? Although Congress and the president have deployed Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commissions to facilitate such closures and insulate individual members of Congress from directly traceable costs of those decisions, the electoral implications of base closures have yet to be fully probed. Focusing on the House of Representatives, I examine all major BRAC closings, and find that major base closures do not affect the electoral fortunes of incumbents. Rather, voters predominantly and typically punish the president's party and first-term lawmakers during these elections. I conclude that Congressional fears about the electoral costs of base closings are likely unfounded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When military community closure occurs, it can be challenging for service members and the surrounding community. Given that services and social networks disappear; this is particularly salient in overseas locations. Few studies have systematically assessed the impact of base closure on military community members. In the present study, 743 soldiers, 114 Army civilian employees, and 54 military spouses living in two closing U.S. military communities in Germany were surveyed about transformation stressors, mental health, and factors associated with better adjustment such as individual coping, leadership behaviors, and community cohesion. While individual coping was associated with fewer sleep problems, and individual coping and leadership were associated with less psychological distress, community cohesion generally overrode these effects in the final step of regression models. Thus, while coping and leadership are important, community connection appears to confer benefits to the affected individuals even in the context of base closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature in the field of economic sciences analyzes the role of military base (unit) on socio-economic development in many perspectives and scales but the local perspective is especially important as the location of military units has significant social, economic and spatial impacts and favors establishing relations between army and local entities, in particular self-government authorities, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations and residents. That is why also military base closures and realignments have prompted some of the most vocal public concerns in surrounding communities. The actual magnitude of local effects connected with closures is usually difficult to estimate, and is based primarily on case studies with some attempts to use statistical analysis in limited range (like employment). The other issue described in the literature is connected with the process of revitalization (recovery) of local communes. One of the instruments of programming the process of so-called mitigation of crisis in the degraded areas has been the local revitalization programs in Poland in recent years. Literature and empirical evidence proves that the closure and alignment of a military unit results in some socioeconomic distress for community and it may be a decisive factor for the emergence of situations in certain areas characterized by the concentration of negative social problems and the occurrence of other negative phenomena (in the economic, environmental, spatio-functional or technical sphere) what is a prerequisite for marking the revitalization area according to Polish law. The EU-financed projects designed in the program should provide an assist to aid community revitalization efforts. This article analyzes examples of local revitalization programs in communities where the military unit was closed. The aim of the case studies will be not only to learn about the actual impacts in the community and the proposals for minimizing those impacts, but also the assessment of the usefulness of the analysis of these planning documents to determine the socio-economic and spatial impacts of military dislocation on the local scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines military base closures in Vermont in the 1920s, following the end of World War I. Enactment of the Defense Act of 1920, which sought the disposal of World War I military installations and facilities; Broad military retrenchment pursued in Vermont; Execution of a deliberate military land acquisition policy; Purchase of a new range for the local National Guard.

The article focuses on the speech of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Cherbourg, France on March 21, 2008. It highlights the nuclear policy of France which includes the plan to reduce the French nuclear arsenal to fewer than 300 warheads and reinforce several disarmament measures. Sarkozy also revealed a new defense strategy in his speech on June 17, 2008. Moreover, a 350-page white paper is consist of several plans and will be submitted to parliament for approval. The plans include the reduction of French military and civilian personnel from 320,000 to 266,000, replacement of outdated equipment, and closure of bases in the next six or seven years. President Sarkozy's other plans regarding the nuclear power of France are discussed. Chart on French arsenal is also provided.

Contrary to ample attention on American military base closures at home, the consequences of base closures abroad remain under-examined even as the American military continues to adjust its global force posture. South Korea, the third biggest host of US military bases overseas, is an under-investigated case despite offering useful insights applicable to other US base hosts. This article examines short-term local-level consequences of US base departures in South Korea, with a focus on environmental and redevelopment challenges that shape the political and economic fate of former base sites. Detailed analyses and interviews on the oft-overlooked fate of multiple post-military sites draw a rather unsettling picture: Most sites remain empty, temporarily deserted and heavily contaminated spaces plagued by redevelopment difficulties. When overseas American bases are closed, they leave problems behind and those problems persist long after base sites return to host communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the impact of military base realignments and closures on regional economic activity in light of the 2005 round of Base Realignment and Closure actions. Baseline regressions with county-level data show employment multipliers comparable to those generated from conventional input-output models. However, controlling for possible endogeneity and other regional-specific factors, regressions indicate more tenuous results for spillover effects from the military to the private sector. Only the contractor type of base employment generated economically and statistically meaningful impacts on local employment. In addition, there is strong evidence of asymmetric effects between military buildups and drawdowns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the base realignment and closure recommendations released by the Pentagon in May 2005. Since 1988, the Pentagon has proposed closing or reorganizing hundreds of military bases. Proponents see this periodic exercise as necessary belt-tightening that adapts the military to post-Cold War realities. The recommendations focused on consolidating smaller facilities and realigning existing missions. The Pentagon's recommendations also reflected the shifting emphasis of U.S. national security interests away from Europe and the Soviet Union, and toward the Pacific region and the global war on terrorism.

The article explores on the military-financial agreement between the U.S. and Ecuador which allow the U.S. military to use the air and naval bases at Salinas and the Galápagos islands for the defense of the Panama Canal. It highlights the struggle of the U.S. Navy to abandon its bombing range that lead to the closure of the military facilities in the island. It also history of global campaigns against foreign military bases wherein the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents were engaged in counterintelligence surveillance in Ecuador.

In The Particularistic President we challenge the dominant paradigm asserting presidential universalism. Instead, we argue that presidents possess strong electoral and partisan incentives to pursue policies that prioritize the needs of some Americans over those of others. In this article, we review our larger argument and expand upon our analyses of two policy areas where presidents have unilateral authority over distributive outcomes: natural disaster declarations and military base closures. In the former, we find strong evidence that President Barack Obama favored both swing and core states in the 2012 election year. In the latter, we find evidence of both electoral and partisan particularism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent announcements of a recommended downsizing of the U.S. Armed Forces, likely to include proposed base closures, will bring new focus to the effect of previous base realignments and closures (BRACs) on the economies of counties hosting military bases. This research provides a new analysis of the effects of base closures on counties which lost military bases or had significant losses due to realignment in the 1988 through 1995 rounds of military base restructuring. This study examines six counties which satisfied the criteria of experiencing a major loss of jobs and being located in non-metropolitan areas. The study employs a quasi-experimental methodology in which counter-factual control groups were selected to evaluate the effects of the base closures. Mahalanobis distance is used to select the control groups, with a priori elimination of urban counties and counties that experienced similar economic shocks or were in proximity to the BRAC event. Factors used in the procedure included several sectoral earnings percentages and income characteristics, growth rates in population and income, nearness to urban areas, population potential, and coefficient of specialization. Impact assessment uses the median growth rate among the control counties to calculate the expected employment by sector and year for the treated county. The expected value is then compared to the actual employment to assess the impact by sector of the military base job loss. Statistical significance is assessed by the rank among the controls and the treated county growth rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the social condition of indigenous peoples in Japan. Topics discussed include the census of indigenous population in the country, the anti-Ainu sentiments of a member of the Sapporo City Assembly in Hokkaido, the initiatives of Okinawans to shut down the Futenma Air Station established by the U.S. military.

This study examines the effects of military base closures on educational expenditures and student outcomes with a national panel data set of school districts between 1990 and 2002. We adopt difference-in-differences estimation in combination with propensity score matching and instrumental variables techniques to estimate these effects. We find that per-pupil spending increases by 25.2 percent in the first year, where it remains. We also find a substantial decrease in graduation rates, but an improving trend occurs in the years after the closure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Military base closures have left 600,000 acres of U.S. land contaminated with unexploded ordnance (UXO). Recent research has demonstrated a method for quantifying the probability of residual UXO harming future land users. Here, we explore how a community neighboring a closed, UXO-contaminated military base responds to the probabilistic risk information this method produces. We explore how probabilistic information affects their risk understanding, risk management preferences, risk perceptions, and worry. We test eight different communication formats employing varying combinations of textual risk descriptions, comparative risk information, stacked bar graphs illustrating the proportion of future land users at risk, and textual summaries and/or graphical histograms presenting uncertainty. We find that stacked bar graphs double the odds of correctly reporting the probability of harm and decrease the perceived risk, compared to textual descriptions. Providing histograms or summary uncertainty information decreases the odds of correctly reporting the probability of harm by about one-half, compared to communications without uncertainty information. We also find that risk communication formats do not alter risk management preferences. We recommend that as EPA reevaluates its UXO risk management policies in the coming year, the agency shift to quantitative rather than its current qualitative approach to assessing and communicating UXO risks [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. Congress in relation to the military detainees that are being held at the American military's Guantanamo Bay Detention Center (GBDC) in Cuba as of December 2012, focusing on the constitutional history of the GBDC and a reported political battle over the potential closure of the military facility. Legislative restrictions on the transfer or release of GBDC detainees are addressed, along with U.S. President Barack Obama's stated intent to close the GBDC.

The 1988 Base Closure and Realignment Act empowered the Commission on Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) to undertake five rounds of significant military base closure and realignment. Investigating the economic impacts associated with base closures provides the first step in not only determining whether the BRAC Commission has effectively minimized negative impacts on affected communities but also provides guidance to policy makers in targeting future base closures, and helps affected communities prepare for the economic shocks associated with these events. This article examines (a) the local economic impacts associated with general changes in military base employment; (b) if the first four, completed rounds of BRAC closures have a significant differential impact on county-level employment; (c) whether these BRAC closures exhibit economic spillover effects on the employment of neighboring counties; and (d) if the economic impact associated with BRAC losses differs for enlisted and civilian personnel reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the political economy of military base closure in the United States. The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Act was passed in 1988 in an attempt to insulate base closure and realignment from politic influence. The political pressure to influence the process remains strong, however, given the negative effects base closures can often have on a local economy. Using data from the 2005 BRAC round, we examine whether the current process insulates base closure and realignment from traditional political influences. We find no evidence of political influence on base closings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military bases have always been complicated as a policy area, with the demands of national security policy and military strategy often at odds with local and state interests and constituent demands upon elected officials. Over the course of more than 200 years, the domestic military basing structure has changed and adapted, often the result of a compendium of factors including shifting military strategies, technological advances, differing alliances, and the changing demographics and constituent desires within a given area or region. The Executive and Legislative branches have both been intimately involved in the military base decision-making process, both indetermining where to establish bases and also in the process to select bases for closure or realignment. Over the past thirty years, the issue of base closures has become even more acutely political and, ultimately, led to the creation of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) as a successful method to select bases for closure and realignment while also compelling Congress and the President to comply with those decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the Nash bargaining solution (NBS) is proposed by the authors which does not require costly assessments by the military decision maker. The authors illustrate its possible application with an example from base realignment and closure (BRAC). As stated, NBS yields an optimal choice set without having to impose ad hoc assessments of nonmonetary costs and benefits by incorporating the preferences of the divisions submitting recommendations.

Since 1988 the United States has closed nearly two dozen major military installations and reclassified them as national wildlife refuges. By presenting a case study of one site of military-to-wildlife conversion, this article examines the formation of these places and the implications of casting military practices and environmental conservation as compatible activities. As lands where military and environmental attributes can be perceived as inseparable, military-to-wildlife sites exemplify hybrid geographies that challenge dualistic notions of nature and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the bid of Iceland to become a member of the European Union (EU). It discusses the requirements of the EU for membership and the reasons why the country delayed its application. It focuses on the international relations policy of Iceland and its bilateral connection to the U.S. that ended in 2006 when the Americans closed its military base. It explores the influence of the Social Democratic Party and the economic recession on the decision to apply for EU membership.

The challenge of governing an intergovernmental network and managing its performance is examined using the example of the state of Maryland’s preparations in the wake of base realignment and closure (BRAC) decisions. BRACStat is patterned after other data modes currently in use in urban areas but that are not used in environments lacking strong executive control. As such, BRACStat serves as an experiment in managing actions in intergovernmental settings in which all governments can affect the decisions made and actions taken. This essay describes the use of BRACStat and describes how it may be applied in managing in other intergovernmental settings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We identify the causal effect of a reduction in military personnel on a number of socioeconomic indicators within the peripheries of military bases. The base realignments and closures in Germany are used as an exogenous source of variation that allows us to identify the effect of a demand shock on household income, output, unemployment, and tax revenue within a specified buffer zone around each base. The analysis covers 298 communities for the period 2003-2007. Consistent with evidence found elsewhere, we find that these base adjustments have only a marginal impact on the local community in which the bases are located. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]