Presidential Administration Research Articles

Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Federalism

Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Federalism

Review: Green Persuasion: Advertising, Voluntarism, and America’s Public Lands, by Jeffrey K. Stine

Review: <i>Green Persuasion: Advertising, Voluntarism, and America’s Public Lands</i>, by Jeffrey K. Stine

Health Equity, History, and a New Presidential Bioethics Commission: Lessons from the "Lost" Reports.

Convening a national bioethics commission has historically been one of the most powerful bioethical legacies a US presidential administration can undertake. The Biden Administration has not yet created such a commission; here we argue that centering health equity and healthcare access would provide a vital framework for a new commission’s legacy. Moreover, we demonstrate two crucial historical episodes when American presidents appointed commissions to examine the practical and ethical implications of these very issues. We turn first to the 1952 President’s Commission report on “Building America’s Health,” a lofty vision of universal healthcare access stymied by both political conflict and unaddressed problems of racism in the era’s legislation. Its rich yet incomplete account of American health inequities serves as a valuable forerunner to questions of justice in bioethics. We then explore the President’s Commission’s 1983 report “Securing Access to Healthcare: A Report on the Ethical Implications of Differences in the Availability of Health Services.” This report took up the mantle of equity in healthcare access, again with mixed results. Only by understanding the checkered history of these overlooked, practically “lost” reports can a new era in American bioethics successfully re-center the goal of equitable health for all.

Endoscopic Prophylaxis and Treatment of Portal-Genesis Oesophageal Haemorrhage

Background. Portal hypertension-triggered oesophageal and gastric variceal bleeding is the most dangerous and threatening complication, with an up to 50–70 % mortality at first episode. High-mortality repeated bleeding develops subsequently in 30–50 % patients, with the proved 100 % recurrence rate in the first two years following the first episode. The world experience dictates further research to continue towards developing new surgical methods and approaches.Aim: to evaluate the treatment efficacy of pneumatic endoscopic band ligation of bleeding oesophageal varices (OV).Materials and methods. The experience of applying pneumatic endoscopic ligation treatment in the patients managed at the General Surgery Unit of the Clinical Hospital of the Kyrgyz Republic Presidential Administration during 2017–2019 was analysed. Endoscopic ligation is a modern minimally invasive and less traumatic intervention used to markedly reduce mortality and improve quality of life in patients with portal hypertension syndrome. The evidence on 76 patients following endoscopic OV ligation was summarised. The patient age ranged from 11 to 70 years (mean 46.26 years); 40 men (52.6 %) and 36 women (47.4 %) were included. Among the 76 patients, portal hypertension was caused by viral cirrhosis in 38, hepatitis B in 5, delta agent hepatitis B in 18, hepatitis C in 13, a hepatitis B–C combination in 1 and a delta agent hepatitis B — hepatitis C combination in 1 patient. In 21 patients, cirrhosis was of unknown aetiology. A portal vein malformation was observed in 13 people of whom 4 had it combined with thrombosis.Results. A total of 94 ligation procedures were performed in 76 patients with grade II–III OV. Some patients needed to undergo the procedure several times, 18 patients had 2 sessions. Two cases required 3 and 4 sessions each. Moderate oesophageal soreness was reported in 32 patients for 1–6 days following the ligation. No complications were registered during the operation. In early postoperative period, 2 patients developed recurrent bleeding, with haemostasis re-achieved by a repeated vein ligation below bleeding.Conclusion. Hence, small invasiveness and minor traumatism coupled with high efficiency and lesser complications render endoscopic ligation the method of choice in primary and secondary prophylaxis and treatment of OV. Endoscopic ligation improves the patient’s quality of life, allows an extra time for conservative treatment and longer period to liver transplantation.

Of Soldiers and Their Rivals: A Comparative Analysis of Alternative Security Forces in Mexico

ABSTRACT Sixteen years into the war on drugs, it is clear that Mexico’s armed forces are unable to solve their nation’s security crisis alone. There is need for an alternative security force capable of supplementing the military and facilitating its return to the barracks. Despite several attempts to create such forces, the military’s presence remains expansive. To understand why, I employ a multiagent model to analyze the relationships between the military, alternative security forces, and presidential administrations. I find the military benefited from cabinet-level representation, which gave its leaders unfiltered access to the president.

Artificial intelligence with American values and Chinese characteristics: a comparative analysis of American and Chinese governmental AI policies

As China and the United States strive to be the primary global leader in AI, their visions are coming into conflict. This is frequently painted as a fundamental clash of civilisations, with evidence based primarily around each country’s current political system and present geopolitical tensions. However, such a narrow view claims to extrapolate into the future from an analysis of a momentary situation, ignoring a wealth of historical factors that influence each country’s prevailing philosophy of technology and thus their overarching AI strategies. In this article, we build a philosophy-of-technology-grounded framework to analyse what differences in Chinese and American AI policies exist and, on a fundamental level, why they exist. We support this with Natural Language Processing methods to provide an evidentiary basis for our analysis of policy differences. By looking at documents from three different American presidential administrations––Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden––as well as both national and local policy documents (many available only in Chinese) from China, we provide a thorough comparative analysis of policy differences. This article fills a gap in US–China AI policy comparison and constructs a framework for understanding the origin and trajectory of policy differences. By investigating what factors are informing each country’s philosophy of technology and thus their overall approach to AI policy, we argue that while significant obstacles to cooperation remain, there is room for dialogue and mutual growth.

Explaining Contentious Energy Policy

The Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline is one of the most polarised examples of contemporary American energy politics. The pipeline policy process has not been stable, so it should be analysed over time via a holistic, historical view of interacting dimensions. Robert Cox’s theoretical notions of the “materials–ideas–institutions” balance are drawn upon to understand how actors’ motivations behind policy development were re-shaped through temporal processes over nearly two decades. A critical feature identified is how such interacting dimensions became significant according to specific US presidential administrations: each, in turn, shifting the direction of decision-making around KXL. The article’s originality lies in operationalising the theory to give an alternative, dynamic explanation for policy motivations around the KXL while also establishing a novel theoretical lens to generally view such policy development.

State Building in Crisis Governance: Donald Trump and COVID-19.

State Building in Crisis Governance: Donald Trump and COVID-19.

The Medicaid expansion of the Affordable Care Act and participation of patients with Medicaid in cancer clinical trials.

6505 Background: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid Expansion (ME) resulted in increased use of Medicaid insurance nationwide. However, the impact of the ACA ME on access to clinical trials has not been examined. Methods: We examined the number and proportion of patients insured by Medicaid at enrollment over time using data from the SWOG Cancer Research Network. We examined all patients 18-64 years old enrolled to treatment trials between April 1, 1992 to February 28, 2020 using Medicaid vs. private insurance. Interrupted time-series analysis was used; first implementation of the ACA ME (in 2014) was the independent exposure variable. Segmented logistic regression was used to estimate the difference between actual enrollment of patients using Medicaid to the expected rate had the ACA ME not been implemented. To account for secular trends related to economic conditions, we adjusted for the monthly unemployment rate using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Indicator variables to reflect administrative differences in Medicaid by presidential administration were included. Results: In total, 47,042 patients age &lt; 65 years were analyzed, including 31,565 (67.1%) females, 18,987 (40.4%) age &lt; 50 years, and 4,709 (10.0%) with Medicaid coverage. Overall, a 20% (OR = 1.20, 95% CI, 1.11-1.30, p &lt;.001) increase per year in the odds of patients using Medicaid was detected following the ACA ME. Based on pre-ACA patterns, the proportion of patients using Medicaid decreased during periods of economic growth and low unemployment; thus, the model-based estimate of the proportion of patients with Medicaid insurance had the ACA ME not occurred was only 7.4% (95% CI, 4.8%-9.5%) at the end of the study period (February 2020), when national unemployment was low (3.5%). In contrast, the actual rate was 20.8% (95% CI, 17.1%-25.0%). Patterns were consistent by age but not by sex, with a stronger 29% (OR = 1.29, 95% CI, 1.17-1.42, p &lt;.001) annual increase in the proportion of Medicaid use for female patients compared to only 7% (OR = 1.07, 95% CI, 0.94-1.23, p =.26) for males. The increase per year of Medicaid use for patients from states that implemented the ME in 2014 or 2015 was 27% (OR = 1.27, 95% CI, 1.16-1.41, p &lt;.001) compared to 7% for patients from other states (OR = 1.07, 95% CI, 0.94-1.22, p =.28). Conclusions: The implementation of the ACA ME was associated with nearly a threefold increase (20.8% vs. 7.4%) in the proportion of patients using Medicaid in cancer clinical trials by early 2020. Improved access to clinical trials for more vulnerable patients is critical for improving confidence that trial findings apply to the general cancer population. These findings suggest that the recently enacted Cancer Treatment Act – which mandates that state Medicaid programs cover the routine care costs of clinical trial participation – may continue to improve access to clinical trials for those with Medicaid insurance.

Presidential Electoral Cycles and Corruption Charges

AbstractAnti-corruption efforts are inherently political. Corruption charges can be levied against political opponents as an instrument of repression; they can also be used against troublesome allies in the same party coalition to further consolidate power. In this paper, we focus on Indonesia and ask: Do major corruption charges follow a presidential electoral cycle—and if so, how? We contend charges against prominent members of the government coalition are more likely to happen before an election, allowing the government to replace intra-party rivals with loyal allies. Conversely, charges against prominent opposition members are more likely to happen after an election when fears of retaliation are low, opportunities for credit-claiming are high, and there is an incentive to remove veto players who may inhibit implementing the government's agenda. To test this argument, we use an original, newly assembled dataset of all major corruption charges—i.e., those involving high-profile politicians and garnering international attention—in Indonesia from 1998–2015 as reported in the Associated Press. We find a significant and robust relationship between the electoral calendar and major corruption charges. This relationship is robust across presidential administrations. These results yield insights into how anti-corruption efforts can become a political tool and counsel caution about the effectiveness of “good governance,” especially in new democracies. Finally, we discuss how contextual political factors external to Indonesia's anti-corruption commission, reinforce this empirical pattern.

The Man of the People: Political Dissent and the Making of the American Presidency

In this fascinating study of early American politics, Nathaniel C. Green uses the presidency as a lens through which to see the development of American national identity, the struggle to establish the authority of the American constitutional system, and the tensions between the emergence of partisan divisions and the desire for national unity. Green eschews the familiar stories about the early American presidency. He does not look at the office of the presidency from the perspective of its occupant. He avoids the momentous early constitutional debates over the scope of the powers of the presidency and the humdrum of presidential administration and policy making. The presidency being “made” in these pages is the presidency of the public imagination. How did people talk about the presidency, and those who aspired to exercise the powers of the presidency, in the early years of the republic? Through a wide-ranging but close examination of...

Not by the Numbers: Evaluating Trump's Administrative Presidency

We examine President Trump's use of administrative tools related to policy making—including executive orders, memoranda, proclamations, signing statements, and rulemaking—and compare him to presidents since Eisenhower. Overall, we find that Trump was not that different from his predecessors and from what theories of unilateral output predict—at least, not by the numbers. However, the content of his actions were noteworthy in two ways. First, the use of these tools as public relations instruments accelerated during his presidency. Second, Trump's rulemaking activities represented a departure from established norms, though not necessarily a durable one. Our study provides valuable historical context on the Trump presidency and highlights the virtues and limitations of using the volume of administrative output to understand the administrative presidency.

United States Africa Command – Balance of Activities during the Presidencies of George H. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump

The article aims at analyzing the development of the U.S. Africa Command during the three presidential administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. According to the author, the attitude of individual American presidents and their administration to the U.S. AFRICOM is an accurate reflection of the approach to both the problems of African states and the place of Africa in the foreign and security policy of the United States. Since the foundation of the U.S. AFRICOM by the administration of G.W. Bush to D. Trump’s desire to liquidate the command. Trump’s attitude to Africa is also illustrated by the fact that he was the first American president since Ronald Reagan who did not visit any of the 54 African states. His two predecessors paid nine such official visits to African countries in total. It seems that despite many myths and fears that accompanied the birth of AFRICOM and during its first years of existence, the worst scenarios have not come to fruition. AFRICOM has not militarized Africa, it has not caused the drastic exacerbation of the rivalry with China in the region, and it has not become the military arm of US expansionism on the continent. What is more, even many skeptics among African state leaders have noted that it has thus far played and continues to play a positive role in counteracting terrorism, therefore, it has supported the stability of African countries.

Detain and Deport: The Chaotic U.S. Immigration Enforcement Regime by Nancy Hiemstra

Reviewed by: Detain and Deport: The Chaotic U.S. Immigration Enforcement Regime by Nancy Hiemstra Brad D. Jokisch Nancy Hiemstra Detain and Deport: The Chaotic U.S. Immigration Enforcement Regime. Athens, Georgia, USA: The University of Georgia Press, 2019. xiii + 184pp. Table, notes, references, maps, and index. $29.95 paper (ISBN 978-0-8203-5463-7); $99.95 cloth (ISBN 978-0-8203-5465-1). Detaining and deporting suspected unauthorized immigrants has become increasingly common, politically popular, and profitable in the United States. The practice predates Trump’s policies by decades, even though his administration’s worst practices drew heightened attention. This timely book by geographer Nancy Hiemstra offers an insightful and important understanding of the detention/deportation system in the United States. She focuses on the drivers and consequences of the system, asking how it developed and what is accomplished by the increasing reliance on detention and deportation as part of immigration enforcement. Hiemstra uses a transnational ethnography of policy to unearth the hidden truths that undergird the system. Her case study with Ecuadoran migrants and much of the research was conducted in 2008–2009 in Cuenca and surrounding communities. The methodological approach is central to the author’s theoretical foundation within detention and deportation studies. To avoid “methodological nationalism” and “border-centric” approaches (p. 12), Hiemstra seeks to understand how detention and deportation create linkages across state borders. This is done, in part, by tracking the detention and subsequent deportation of Ecuadorans working in the United States. She shows that deportation does not produce a territorial break—migrant from the destination country—rather, it recreates transnational linkages and generates human tragedy and insecurity in the process. Furthermore, U.S. immigration enforcement efforts have been extended well beyond the U.S.-Mexico border to encourage Latin American countries to deter emigration and to apprehend migrants in route, including at sea by the U.S Coast Guard. This author’s approach is designed to improve the theoretical lens political geographers (and others) use to understand detention and deportation, but also show how the system actually works across borders; detention in New Jersey reverberates in rural Ecuador among the migrants’ loved ones, and even the smugglers and money lenders. Clearly, immigration enforcement is not bound by state borders. Detaining and deporting suspected unauthorized immigrants has escalated since the 1980s, with each presidential administration. [End Page 195] Under President George W. Bush, 9/11 produced a major increase in securitization, but it was the Obama administration that oversaw the detention and deportation machine that exists today. The author argues that through time three factors have been marshalled to justify detention and deportation—security, racialized notions of who belongs in the U.S., and economic frustrations that are blamed on immigrants. Post 9/11 anxieties combined fear of non-white immigrants with a purported security risk. Paramount to U.S. policy has been creating deterrence; the more miserable and dangerous the experience for unauthorized migrants or asylum—seekers, the less likely unauthorized migration will continue. Under the Obama administration, detention grew so common that dozens of private contractors began housing thousands of detained immigrants, earning large sums of money in the process. This “immigration industrial complex” (p. 59) created an infrastructure and demand for detained immigrants. Case studies from Hiemstra’s volunteer work in Cuenca with families of detained migrants show that the detention and deportation is more than frustrating, it is chaotic. Chaos is not simply descriptive, it is a critical concept the author uses to characterize the system, one that serves many functions. Finding detained migrants from Ecuador in the U.S. detention system (for Hiemtsra, not family members!) was challenging because of the inconsistencies and incomprehensibility of the system. For detained migrants, the chaos starts with the legal proceedings that are complex, and with no legal counsel, commonly lead to poor outcomes. Migrants are frequently transferred from facility to facility with little notice and for unexplained reasons, further disorienting them, and making them “lost in time and space” (p. 82). It is less important to understand if the chaos is intentional or merely accidental; it is more important to understand what it accomplishes—to perpetuate the industrial migration...

Islamophobia in Higher Education: Combating Discrimination and Creating Understanding by Shafiqa Ahmadi &amp; Darnell Cole Sterling

Reviewed by: Islamophobia in Higher Education: Combating Discrimination and Creating Understanding by Shafiqa Ahmadi & Darnell Cole Sterling J.T. Snipes Islamophobia in Higher Education: Combating Discrimination and Creating Understanding Shafiqa Ahmadi & Darnell Cole Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2020, 161 pages, $29.95 (paperback) In a 2021 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed argued that Islamophobia is on the rise, noting that institutional surveillance and suspicion of Muslims (and those perceived to be Muslim) have reached epidemic proportions. He also noted that global attitudes towards Muslims are becoming increasingly negative, citing that 37% of Europeans surveyed viewed Muslims unfavorably. The US fared slightly better, with 30% of Americans surveyed holding negative attitudes toward Muslims. When examining perceptions of Muslim students on campus, Mayhew and colleagues (2016) found that 43% of students held high appreciative attitudes toward Muslim students. This score was among the lowest for any religious or secular group, with only Mormons having a lower score at 39%. Given the unfavorable attitudes toward Muslims globally and on college campuses, Islamophobia in Higher Education is a timely text that explores the nexus between Islamophobia, institutional structures, and student experiences. Before reviewing the text, it is imperative that I situate myself in relation to the topic of Islamophobia. As a Black Christian man, who grew up in the church and was educated at a Christian university, I am no stranger to Islamophobia. I remember my sophomore year of college living through the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the wake of the tragedy, I saw and participated in hateful Islamophobic rhetoric. I came to understand the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a holy war, pitting Christianity against Islam. I also believed that Muslims at home or abroad were the enemy. It would not be until the 2008 presidential campaign of then-Senator Barack Obama that I, as a second-year master's student, came to understand Islamophobia in a different way. Some of the nation's electorate were gripped in an irrational fear of a Black man whose middle name is Hussein. Islamophobia transformed this brilliant, Harvard-educated scholar into an alleged pawn of the Islamic State and a terrorist. Having a text like this one would have been helpful in further raising my consciousness in relation to white supremacist Christian ideals situated as an assault on Muslims. Islamophobia in Higher Education is a relatively brief edited volume. It begins with Ahmadi and Cole (2020) articulating their threefold purpose for the book. First, the authors aim to examine the institutionalization of Islamophobia in US higher education. Second, they want to describe how institutionalized Islamophobia impacts the various social locations Muslims occupy. Finally, the authors seek to offer recommendations for policy and practice. These purposes shape the structure of the text, yielding two sections. The first section of the book, Chapters 1 through 4, examines Islamophobia through the lens of federal and institutional policies. Chapter 1 begins with an exploration of the Muslim travel bans enacted by the Trump presidential administration (i.e., Executive Order 13769), explaining how the Islamophobic policies of previous administrations made [End Page 347] the bans possible. In enacting this controversial policy that suspended immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries (i.e., Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen), President Trump aimed to fulfill a campaign promise related to border security. The chapter also draws links to the impact of the Muslim travel ban and other Islamophobic policies on Muslim college students. Chapter 2 discusses the criminalization of Muslim students focusing on how institutions surveil Muslims. Chapter author, Parwana Anwar, noted that post-9/11, law enforcement agencies (including the CIA and the FBI) were given legal authority to surveil Muslim communities on and off campus—surveillance made possible through the criminalization of their religious identity. To be Muslim, Anwar claims, is to always and already be a criminal. Chapters 3 and 4 build on the initial framework of the Muslim ban laid out in Chapter 1, exploring human rights and immigration status. Together these initial four chapters provide a deep and rich context of institutional Islamophobia upon which the next section of the book builds. The...

The Second Cold War: Carter, Reagan, and the Politics of Foreign Policy

The Second Cold War: Carter, Reagan, and the Politics of Foreign Policy

A “People” Approach to U.S.-Soviet Relations

In a New York Times editorial in the fall of 2021, the political scientist Anne-Marie Slaughter entreated the U.S. presidential administration of Joe Biden to develop a new approach to international relations that puts “people first, to see the world first as a planet of eight billion people rather than as an artificially constructed system of 195 countries and to measure all state actions in terms of their impact on people.”1 Biden’s foreign policy approach, she charged, was stuck in a twentieth-century mindset that privileged diplomacy and defense as the purview of international relations, while “people” issues were relegated to the realm of human rights and development. Historians of twentieth-century international relations, including the authors of the articles in this forum, might take issue with that characterization. They provide ample evidence of how deeply “people”—meaning citizens outside the realm of high-power politics—were entangled in international relations and how their actions were both supported by, and in turn shaped, state-level diplomacy.

Public Opinion, Federalism, and Level of Governmental Intervention: Perceptions of Law Enforcement Response to the 2020 George Floyd Protests

Abstract In June 2020, President Trump issued an executive order calling for the deployment of federal law enforcement agents to protests against police brutality. Several mayors across the country objected to this unilateral deployment of federal force as unconstitutional. In an online survey experiment, we test whether the public stands against this type of federal power aggrandizement by evaluating how approval of federal intervention in protests changes depending on whether it is requested by local mayors or directed by the presidential administration. The results show that the public is responsive to the level of government directing the action. Respondents are significantly less approving of the use of federal forces when it is directed by the federal executive branch. However, not all subgroups respond equally to the manipulation. The treatment effects vary significantly by respondent partisanship, trust in government, and perceptions of the importance of federalism.

Experts and climate change politicisation. A case study of the Environmental Protection Agency (1983–2015)

AbstractHow did governmental experts respond publicly to the politicisation of climate change in the policy domain? Did they remain neutral to this process, resisted these efforts, or enabled them? Using longitudinal data derived from a content analysis of congressional testimonies provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) between 1983 and 2015, I find that the proportion of climate-related advocacy statements increased over time, yet their prevalence varied with the political context. As the agency’s position-taking on the issue intensified over time, this intensity was conditional on the political context. Most importantly, the EPA experts never denied the scientific basis of climate change, not even under presidential administrations that did, and instead advocated for climate action. These findings complicate traditional conceptualisations of experts as either independent from or subservient to politics, suggesting a more complex relationship where experts attempt to respond to contentious politics while maintaining continuity in their mission.

Effect of Sulodexide on Circulating Blood Cells in Patients with Mild COVID-19.

Background. Despite the fact that COVID-19 usually manifests with severe pneumonia, there is a growing body of evidence that life-threatening multiorgan damage is caused by vascular and hemostatic abnormalities. Since there is no established therapy, assessing antithrombotics is indeed important. Sulodexide, a compound derived from porcine intestinal mucosa is a mixture of fast-moving heparin fraction (80%) and dermatan sulfate (20%), is approved in Europe and currently in trials for COVID-19 indication. Methods. This single-center, prospective, observational study included 28 patients with mild COVID-19 hospitalized in the Central Clinical Hospital of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation. Patients in the control group (n = 14) were treated using routine therapy according to current guidelines, while patients in the experimental group (n = 14) had the routine treatment supplemented with daily intravenous injections of sulodexide in 600-unit doses. Scanning electron microscopy was utilized to examine the blood specimens derived from the cubital vein at admission and at 10 days after hospitalization, which was approximately the average duration of patients’ treatment in the hospital (11.6 ± 0.4 days). Results. Sulodexide significantly (by 40%) diminished the score of circulating endothelial cells, potentially indicating its antiviral endothelium-protective properties. It also prevented the extra activation of the platelets and the formation of erythrocytic sludges. Among patients in the control group, the share of activated platelets rose from 37 ± 5% to 45 ± 6% (p = 0.04) over the course of the study period, whereas among patients in the experimental group, the share of activated platelets remained practically unchanged (43 ± 6% vs. 38 ± 4%, p = 0.22). The score of erythrocytic sludges in the control group remained practically the same (4.8 ± 1.1 at admission vs. 3.9 ± 0.9 after 10 days, p = 0.67), whereas in the experimental group, it significantly decreased (from 5.7 ± 1.7 to 2.4 ± 0.9, p = 0.03). Conclusions. Sulodexide is able to defend endothelium, normalize blood, and, seemingly, prevent thrombosis. Therefore, it may be considered as a promising and effective agent for the treatment of patients with mild COVID-19. Broader randomized trials are needed to assess whether the observed findings will transform into sustained long-term clinical benefit.