American Exceptionalism in Crime, Punishment, and Disadvantage

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Lacey ◽  
David Soskice
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Political System ◽  
National Policy ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Comparative Political Economy ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Politics Of Race

This chapter sets a particular thesis focused on the institutional structure of the American political system within the context of a broader literature in the comparative political economy of crime and punishment. It then considers three possible objections to this analysis. The first argues that increasing American exceptionalism in the postwar period is to be explained primarily in terms of a distinctive history and politics of race. The next is the argument that this exceptionalism is to be attributed primarily to national policy driven by the federal government. The final argument is that American exceptionalism is driven by the interests of political elites who are relatively disconnected from the interests of their electors. Each of these objections, the chapter suggests, can be met.

An Agenda for Future Research

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Campbell ◽  
Ove K. Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Convergence Theory ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Comparative Political Economy ◽  
Knowledge Regime ◽  
The Future ◽  
Cross National

This postscript offers some suggestions for a research agenda for the future, including questions and propositions for scholars to consider regarding globalization and neoliberal diffusion, comparative political economy, and convergence theory. It asks whether the same conclusions can be obtained if different countries and different policy areas were examined. This curiosity about other countries might translate into efforts to change knowledge regimes, such as by doing more cross-national policy analysis. The chapter also asks whether knowledge regimes are a source of legitimation or a source of inspiration. Ultimately, more effort is required to determine whether the overall structure and practices of a knowledge regime influences the type of ideas it tends to produce.

scholarly journals American Exceptionalism in Inequality and Poverty: A (Tentative) Historical Explanation

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-67
Author(s):  
Nicola Lacey ◽  
David Soskice
Keyword(s):  
Violent Crime ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
The Us ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
The 19Th Century

The United States is a fascinating case study in the complex links between crime, punishment and inequality, standing out as it does in terms of inequality as measured by a number of economic standards; levels of serious violent crime; and rates of imprisonment, penal surveillance and post-conviction disqualifications. This chapter builds on the authors’ previous work arguing that the exceptional rise in violent crime and punishment in the US from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s can be explained by the interaction of four political and economic variables: ‘technological regime change’; ‘varieties of capitalism’ and ‘varieties of welfare state’; types of ‘political system’; and – critically and specifically – the US as a radical outlier in the degree of local democracy. Three further questions implied by the authors’ previous work are asked. First, why did such distinctive patterns of local democracy arise in America? And how is this political structure tied up with the history and politics of race? Second, what did the distinctive historical development of the US political economy in the 19th century imply for the structure of its criminal justice institutions? And third, why did the burden of crime and punishment come to fall so disproportionately on African Americans?

Introduction

Race News ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Political System ◽  
Black Politics ◽  
Black Nationalism ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Successive Generations

The journalism careers of Marvel Cooke and Ethel Payne illustrate how shifting acceptance of radical black politics defined the professional outlook of successive generations of black journalists. Due to the career restrictions imposed by segregation, Cooke and Payne were members of an expansive and permeable black print culture that encouraged authors, poets, scholars, and activists to publish alongside working reporters. This familiarity imbued black journalism with an unexpected cultural vibrancy and cosmopolitan character. During the interwar years, journalists like Cooke promoted a progressive reporting style that included the politics of anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, and Black Nationalism. In the postwar period, though, journalists like Payne promoted a narrower conception of freedom that emphasized acceptance of America’s two-party political system and its political economy.

Stacking the Senate, Changing the Nation: Republican Rotten Boroughs, Statehood Politics, and American Political Development

1992 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Stewart ◽  
Barry R. Weingast
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political System ◽  
National Policy ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Republican Revolution

Info the 1870s, Republican Leaders were preoccupied with the danger that a Southern re-entry into the political system might produce an overthrow of their coalition at the polls and a restoration of the Jacksonian coalition to its former dominance. Nor was this a chimera: the success of the Republican revolution in national policy-making had been predicated upon enormous artificial majorities that were produced in a Congress in which the Southern states were not represented. Indeed, the Republican fears were partially realized after 1872. Southern “Redemption” and the persistence of traditional Northern support for the Democrats resulted in a unique period of partisan deadlock which lasted from 1874 until Republican capture of all branches of the federal government in 1896.

scholarly journals National policy space: reframing the political economy of globalization and its implications for national sovereignty and democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-465
Author(s):  
THOMAS PALLEY
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
National Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Global Democracy ◽  
Political Project ◽  
Degree Type

ABSTRACT This paper critiques the trilemma framing of the political economy of globalization, and offers an alternative framing based on the construction of national policy space. The paper makes three main contributions. First, building on Stein (2016), it deconstructs the categories used by Rodrik (2011) and introduces distinctions between the “degree”, “type”, and “dimensions” of globalization; “effective” versus “formal” national sovereignty; “content” versus “process” of democracy; and “national” versus “global” democracy. The deconstruction shows countries face choices involving a series of margins, not a trilemma. Second, that suggests reframing the problematic in terms of national policy space, which is the “funnel” through which globalization impacts democracy and national sovereignty. Third, the paper shows a country can be impacted by globalization even if it does nothing because other countries’ actions change its possibility set. The reframing shows globalization is an intrinsically political project. To the extent it is now driving a nationalistic anti-democratic turn in politics, responsibility lies with political elites.

Comparative Political Economy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Menz
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Comparative Political Economy ◽  
Technological Parameters ◽  
Private Debt

This new and comprehensive volume invites the reader on a tour of the exciting subfield of comparative political economy. The book provides an in-depth account of the theoretical debates surrounding different models of capitalism. Tracing the origins of the field back to Adam Smith and the French Physiocrats, the development of the study of models of political-economic governance is laid out and reviewed. Comparative Political Economy (CPE) sets itself apart from International Political Economy (IPE), focusing on domestic economic and political institutions that compose in combination diverse models of political economy. Drawing on evidence from the US, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, and Japan, the volume affords detailed coverage of the systems of industrial relations, finance, welfare states, and the economic role of the state. There is also a chapter that charts the politics of public and private debt. Much of the focus in CPE has rested on ideas, interests, and institutions, but the subfield ought to take the role of culture more seriously. This book offers suggestions for doing so. It is intended as an introduction to the field for postgraduate students, yet it also offers new insights and fresh inspiration for established scholars. The Varieties of Capitalism approach seems to have reached an impasse, but it could be rejuvenated by exploring the composite elements of different models and what makes them hang together. Rapidly changing technological parameters, new and more recent environmental challenges, demographic change, and immigration will all affect the governance of the various political economy models throughout the OECD. The final section of the book analyses how these impending challenges will reconfigure and threaten to destabilize established national systems of capitalism.

scholarly journals Skill-Biased Liberalization: Germany’s Transition to the Knowledge Economy

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232922110065
Author(s):  
Sebastian Diessner ◽  
Niccolo Durazzi ◽  
David Hope
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Information And Communications Technology ◽  
Comparative Political Economy ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Exporting Firms ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
Elite Interviews

This article conceptualizes the evolution of the German political economy as the codevelopment of technological and institutional change. The notion of skill-biased liberalization is introduced to capture this process and contrasted with the two dominant theoretical frameworks employed in contemporary comparative political economy scholarship—dualization and liberalization. Integrating theories from labor economics, the article argues that the increasing centrality of high skills complementary in production to information and communications technology has weakened the traditional complementarity among specific skills, regulated industrial relations, and generous social protection in core sectors. The liberalization of industrial relations and social protection is shown in fact to be instrumental for high-end exporting firms to concentrate wages and benefits on increasingly important high-skilled workers. Strong evidence based on descriptive statistics, union and industry documents, and twenty-one elite interviews is found in support of the article’s alternative perspective.

The Political Economy of Aid Allocation in Africa: Evidence from Zambia

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takaaki Masaki
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
The Political ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Aid Allocation ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Swing Voters

Abstract:This article utilizes a newly available dataset on the geographical distribution of development projects in Zambia to test whether electoral incentives shape aid allocation at the subnational level. Based on this dataset, it argues that when political elites have limited information to target distributive goods specifically to swing voters, they allocate more donor projects to districts where opposition to the incumbent is strong, as opposed to districts where the incumbent enjoys greater popularity.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document