State Autonomy and American Political Development: How Mass Democracy Promoted State Power

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel DeCanio
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The State ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
State Autonomy ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Primary Unit

In the 1980s, many scholars of both comparative and American politics argued that states often act autonomously from social demands. Rejecting reductionist assumptions regarding the primacy of social groups for public policy, both groups of scholars examine how government actors and preexisting institutional constraints influenced policy implementation. Since then, however, while the state has been retained as the primary unit of analysis for most studies of American political development, interest in the autonomy of the state has dwindled, and scholars have increasingly focused on how social groups and electoral outcomes explain state formation and public policy, especially in the nineteenth century. In some instances, scholars have even denied that state autonomy is a relevant concept for the study of American political development.

American Political Development from Citizens' Perspective: Tracking Federal Government's Presence in Individual Lives over Time

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Mettler ◽  
Andrew Milstein
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Political Roles ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

Although scholars of American political development (APD) have helped transform many aspects of the study of U.S. politics over the last quarter-century, they have barely begun to use the powerful analytical tools of this approach to elucidate the relationship between government and citizens. APD research has probed deeply into the processes of state-building and the creation and implementation of specific policies, yet has given little attention to how such development affects the lives of individuals and the ways in which they relate to government. Studies routinely illuminate how policies influence the political roles of elites and organized groups, but barely touch on how the state shapes the experiences and responses of ordinary individuals. As a result, we know little about how governance has influenced citizenship over time or how those changes have, in turn, affected politics.

Neither Markets nor Administration: Brandeis and the Antitrust Reforms of 1914

1994 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Berk
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Old Order

The election of 1912 retains its hold on the imagination of students of American political development. Long interpreted as a conflict between tradition and modernity, Martin Sklar has recently argued that the old order had passed by 1912. In law and economy, competitive-proprietary capitalism had been eclipsed by administration. The political conflict was now overwhowould administer prices and investment, the corporation of the state?

Coalition Formation and Colonialism in Western Sicily

1972 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter T. Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Local Region ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Single Model ◽  
The West ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Western Sicily ◽  
And Control ◽  
Primary Unit

Recently an evolutionary and international perspective has been applied to the study of nonindustrial areas which rejects the popular idea that all such places are, or once were, ‘traditional’ and will ‘modernize’ in much the same way that the West was once traditional and has modernized. This change in perspective requires that the nation-state give way to the more local region as a primary unit of analysis, so that we can examine the varied relationships between regional and international centers of marketing and control, as well as between the region and nation-state of which it is a part. It further suggests that no single model of economic and political development can be applied to different cases at different points in history. The process ofdevelopment in XVIIth century Britain differed in important ways from contemporary attempts which occur in the context of a world-wide economy dominated by established industrialpowers (1).

The Color Line and the State

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley S. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Color Line ◽  
Minority Politics ◽  
Early American ◽  
Core Questions

This article examines the ways in which scholars of American political development (APD) have encountered the color line through their research, and the strides they have made in bringing race back into the field of political science in general and the study of the state in particular. Three core questions about race and APD are considered: How is race defined? When does race matter? In what direction does race matter? Two approaches relating to race and American politics are discussed: the race relations approach and the racial politics (or minority politics) approach. It then explores five challenges that must be addressed in order to overcome the persistent connections between APD and the discipline’s racial anomalism. It also analyzes the role of race in the establishment of the early American welfare state and concludes by reflecting on the persistence of racial inequality and prospects for APD in the twenty-first century.

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