Racial Considerations and Social Policy in the 1930s

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-177
Author(s):  
John Brueggemann
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Racial Stratification ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Inclusive Society ◽  
The New Deal

Social policy that emerged from the New Deal era continues to shape race relations and politics today. Since the 1930s, scholars have debated the net effect of the New Deal on racial inequality. On the one hand, the social policies of the 1930s are viewed as a great step toward a racially inclusive society (Myrdal 1944; Wolters 1975; Sitkoff 1978, 1985; Ezell 1975; Patterson 1986; Weiss 1983). In contrast to previous eras and political regimes,Roosevelt's New Deal reflected a qualitatively different sense of government's responsibility toward its citizens, including African Americans. Alternatively, New Deal era social policy is considered a crucial component in the structure of American racial stratification (Lewis 1982; Rose 1993; Quadagno 1994; Valocchi 1994; Brown 1999).The legislative record of the New Deal was consistently racialized and discriminatory.Welfare policy, in particular, actively excluded and subjugated blacks. These contrasting portrayals reflect the ambiguity of the New Deal legacy of race relations.

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

Counting on Relief: Industrializing the Statistical Interviewer during the New Deal

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Didier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Deal ◽  
White Collar ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
White Collar Workers ◽  
Statistical Studies ◽  
The One ◽  
The New Deal

ArgumentWhen the New Deal administration attained power in the United States, it was confronted with two different problems that could be linked to one another. On the one hand, there was a huge problem of unemployment, affecting everybody including the white-collar workers. And, on the other hand, the administration suffered from a very serious lack of data to illuminate its politics. One idea that came out of this situation was to use the abundant unemployed white-collar workers as enumerators of statistical studies. This paper describes this experiment, shows how it paradoxically affected the professionalization of statistics, and explains why it did not affect expert democracy despite its Deweysian participationist aspect.

The challenges of inclusive growth for the developmental welfare state

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huck-ju Kwon
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
What Works ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

One of the biggest challenges for developing a new more productivist social policy approach has been the apparent absence of a new, post-neoliberal, economic model even after the global financial crisis. This chapter explores the social policy implications of the official ‘pragmatism’ of the new economic model with its ‘institutionalist’ emphases on nation states finding what works best in their own contexts rather than looking to the one size fits all approach of recent decades.

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