The Politics of Depression and War

Author(s):  
Jason Scott Smith

This essay explores how the Great Depression and World War II shaped politics in the United States. The collapse of the economy brought Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) to the presidency; it also brought the New Deal. This essay explores the ways in which the New Deal’s attempts to save capitalism brought about long-lasting political changes, forging an electoral coalition that dominated American politics for decades. The New Deal’s key policy measures, including public works construction and the creation of social security, proved to be effective politics as well. World War II saw FDR and the federal government draw upon the New Deal’s methods, reforms, and bureaucracies in mobilizing the nation’s economy and society. This policy toolkit, the essay concludes, signaled the political power of empirically minded flexibility, ratifying for a generation the legitimacy of the government’s involvement in the economy.

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-254
Author(s):  
Andreu Espasa

De forma un tanto paradójica, a finales de los años treinta, las relaciones entre México y Estados Unidos sufrieron uno de los momentos de máxima tensión, para pasar, a continuación, a experimentar una notable mejoría, alcanzando el cénit en la alianza política y militar sellada durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El episodio catalizador de la tensión y posterior reconciliación fue, sin duda, el conflicto diplomático planteado tras la nacionalización petrolera de 1938. De entre los factores que propiciaron la solución pacífica y negociada al conflicto petrolero, el presente artículo se centra en analizar dos fenómenos del momento. En primer lugar, siguiendo un orden de relevancia, se examina el papel que tuvo la Guerra Civil Española. Aunque las posturas de ambos gobiernos ante el conflicto español fueron sustancialmente distintas, las interpretaciones y las lecciones sobre sus posibles consecuencias permitieron un mayor entendimiento entre los dos países vecinos. En segundo lugar, también se analizarán las afinidades ideológicas entre el New Deal y el cardenismo en el contexto de la crisis mundial económica y política de los años treinta, con el fin de entender su papel lubricante en las relaciones bilaterales de la época. Somewhat paradoxically, at the end of the 1930s, the relationship between Mexico and the United States experienced one of its tensest moments, after which it dramatically improved, reaching its zenith in the political and military alliance cemented during World War II. The catalyst for this tension and subsequent reconciliation was, without doubt, the diplomatic conflict that arose after the oil nationalization of 1938. Of the various factors that led to a peaceful negotiated solution to the oil conflict, this article focuses on analyzing two phenomena. Firstly—in order of importance—this article examines the role that the Spanish Civil War played. Although the positions of both governments in relation to the Spanish war were significantly different, the interpretations and lessons concerning potential consequences enabled a greater understanding between the two neighboring countries. Secondly, this article also analyzes the ideological affinities between the New Deal and Cardenismo in the context of the global economic and political crisis of the thirties, seeking to understand their role in facilitating bilateral relations during that period.


1968 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 494-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Shapiro

Much of the business of the U.S. Congress in the post war period has involved issues concerning the size and scope of activities of the federal government. The legislation in this area can be traced, for the most part, to measures which originated during the period of the New Deal in response to the Great Depression and to measures enacted during World War II to meet the short-run exigencies attendant to rapid economic and social mobilization. From the point of view of the expansion of the federal role, the Eisenhower years are of some moment. While they marked a lull in the expansionist trend witnessed under the Democratic presidencies of Roosevelt and Truman, their significance lies in the fact that despite the change in adminsitrations, there was no reversal of the policies begun during the Roosevelt years. While most of the Republican legislators were on record in opposition to the expansion of the federal role, the failure of the Republican Party to introduce and enact legislation to reverse the trend of federal expansion resulted in a new plateau of federal activity from which the congressional dialogue was to proceed during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.While the 87th Congress, meeting during Kennedy's first two years in the White House, did not enact the quantity of legislation expanding the federal role that Kennedy had called for in his inaugural, In the 88th Congress both parties supported a larger federal role to a greater extent than they had previously. In fact the first sessions of the 88th Congress as it bears on the federal role has been summed up as follows: “At no time did the majority of both parties reject a larger federal role.” (Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1963, p. 724) With two exceptions, the statement holds true for the second session in 1964.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika E. Berenyi

Since the conclusion of World War II, the ethos of the Roosevelt administration (1933-1945) and the achievements of the New Deal era have been celebrated by official rhetoric.


1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Waddell

Since many scholars focus on the New Deal as the foundation for modern U.S. governance, it is widely assumed that the United States is characterized by a weak state as compared to the welfare states of Western Europe. Yet, in the wake of World War II, the United States established a national security “warfare state” that rivaled the welfare states of Western Europe in scope of authority and operations and in its isolation from popular forces. The wartime redirection of U.S. state power also resolved the political stalemate stemming from the executive-congressional and business-government tensions roused during the New Deal. In fact, the course of wartime statebuilding was in many ways a response to the political tensions of the New Deal and to the expectation that the organization of wartime mobilization would indelibly define the postwar organization of U.S. state power. As this article argues, wartime mobilization resolved the New Deal political stalemate in large part by granting various segments of the corporate community the opportunity to influence the shape of U.S. national state power.


2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-380
Author(s):  
Shane Hamilton

Amid swirling talk of a “postracial” politics in the wake of Barack Obama's election as the forty-fourth president of the United States, Joseph Lowndes offers a needed reminder of the central role played by race in American political culture. Nowhere is the discourse of race more apparent, according to Lowndes, than in the supposedly “color-blind” politics of modern U.S. conservatism. Using language that fashioned New Deal liberalism as a “racial synecdoche” (p. 158) for all that conservatives reviled in the four decades following World War II, conservative strategists forged a triumphant pro-business Republican platform that could simultaneously claim to be postracial while serving as the key vote getter of closet racists throughout the nation.


Author(s):  
Gillis J. Harp

Chapter 5 examines the first half of the twentieth century, focusing initially on the judicial and political critics of Progressivism. Although conservatives such as Justice David Brewer drew upon Christian elements in articulating their judicial theory, it was in a limited and circumscribed way. Similarly, political conservatives such as Elihu Root substituted a constitutional formalism and veneration of the Founders for the more theological approach of the Gilded Age dissenters. Meanwhile, leaders such as Presbyterian scholar John Gresham Machen helped draw evangelicals away from the older theocratic approach toward more libertarian views regarding politics and the state. Conservative responses to the Great Depression included Fundamentalists who viewed the New Deal apocalyptically and organizers of the Liberty League who warned of a coming totalitarianism. The modest connections established between Liberty Leaguers and evangelicals foreshadowed the deeper alliance that would profoundly shape the post–World War II conservative movement.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika E. Berenyi

Since the conclusion of World War II, the ethos of the Roosevelt administration (1933-1945) and the achievements of the New Deal era have been celebrated by official rhetoric.


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