Law in Action: The Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Grisinger
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Federal Trade Commission ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Federal Communications Commission ◽  
Veterans Administration ◽  
National Labor Relations Board ◽  
Administrative Procedure ◽  
Administrative Agencies ◽  
The New Deal

The story of American political development in the twentieth century is in no small part the story of administration. Administrative agencies, bureaus, and departments tasked with handling the work of the federal government had been a feature of governance since the early republic. With the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887, however, administrative agencies and independent regulatory commissions began to proliferate across the federal landscape. By the end of the massive expansion of federal power that characterized the New Deal, Americans very much experienced government through their interactions with bureaucrats and with administrative boards. Individuals and businesses claimed benefits from the Railroad Retirement Board and Veterans Administration, defended themselves against claims of unfair competition before the Federal Trade Commission, requested permits from the Federal Alcohol Administration and the Federal Communications Commission, and sought to resolve labor disputes before the National Labor Relations Board.

On Categories and Configurations: Further Remarks on Rebuilding the American state

1995 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Katznelson ◽  
Bruce Pietrykowski
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
The New Deal ◽  
Past Half ◽  
American State

“Rebuilding the American State” was written in the manner of a bozzetto: it is a sketch drawn to reshape interlocking analytical and historiographical conversations and to suggest pathways joining the era of Roosevelt to the qualities and conundrums of postwar Democratic party liberalism. We underscored the key role of what might be called the long 1940s, stretching from the economic and political crisis faced by the New Deal in 1937–38 to the election in 1952 of the first Republican president since Hoover. We claimed that institutional and policy decisions taken across a number of domains in this period coherently recast the state and, in so doing, the contours and possibilities of American politics. We argued as well that old and new institutionalist approaches to state capacity have shared an unfortunate propensity to inventory organizational resources without regard to the normative and practical policy visions that define the content of what it is the state actually is meant to accomplish. In this light, simple dichotomous distinctions between weak and strong states appear as too blunt to sharply etch our understanding of the past half-century of American political development.

Race, Institutions, and the Administration of Social Policy

1995 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Economic Regulation ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The New Deal

The New Deal marked a critical conjuncture of civil rights and welfare policy in American political development. During the Progressive Era, civil rights policy and social policy developed independently and often antithetically. While the American state expanded its reach in economic regulation and social welfare, laying the institutional and intellectual groundwork for the New Deal, policies aimed at protecting the rights of minorities progressed barely at all (McDonagh 1993). But with the Great Depression, the welfare and civil rights agendas came together powerfully. For African Americans, who had already been relegated to the bottom of the political economy, the Depression created even more desperate conditions, and issues of economic opportunity and relief became paramount. The African American political community pursued an agenda that linked advances in civil rights to expansions of the state's role in social welfare (Hamilton and Hamilton 1992).

The Presidency and American Political Development

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney M. Milkis
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
American History ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Constitutional Government ◽  
Presidential Studies ◽  
The New Deal

In contrast to mainstream presidential studies, American Political Development (APD) scholars have viewed presidents as critical agents of structural change. They have dedicated creative theorizing, archival research, process tracing, and thick description to the investigation of how presidents have been formative actors in state-building and in redefining regime norms and the terms of constitutional government throughout American history. This chapter explores how an APD approach to studying the presidency sheds light on critical questions such as how presidents have influenced the rise and fall of political orders in American history; how presidential power has been affected by the emergence of “big government” during the first six decades of the twentieth century; and how the establishment of a presidency-centered democracy forged on the New Deal political order has affected representative constitutional government. Continued attention to regime-level issues requires that APD maintain its traditional ties to political theory and the humanities.

The American Tradition of Empirical Collectivism

1952 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Currin V. Shields
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
The New Deal ◽  
American Thought ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Fair Deal ◽  
Populist Movements

About the American tradition of individualism much has been said and written—so much, indeed, that this country has come to be regarded as the stronghold of individualism. That the ideal of the free individual has long pervaded American thought cannot, of course, be denied. Yet while it is true that this tradition is clearly discernible throughout American political development, its role has been grossly exaggerated. Along with individualism there has existed in America, from the earliest days of colonization, an equally strong and an equally significant collectivist tradition. The New Deal and its presumptive successor, the Fair Deal, regarded by so many as new and dangerous departures, actually are like their predecessors, the Square Deal and the New Freedom, the Granger and the Populist movements, merely episodes in the development of a venerable American tradition of collectivism.

Constituting Workers, Protecting Women: Gender, Law, and Labor in the Progressive and New Deal Years. By Julie Novkov. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 336p. $44.50.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 830-831
Author(s):  
Carol Nackenoff
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Era ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Labor History ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Gender And Politics ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Ann Arbor ◽  
The New Deal

Trained in both law and political science, Julie Novkov has made a major contribution to an understanding of the transitions from the Progressive Era to the New Deal that will be especially important for new institutionalist scholars of the Supreme Court, for students of American political development, and for scholars of gender and politics, women's history, and labor history. It also instructs those activists both inside and outside the legal community who turn to the courts.

Reconsideration of the Research Trajectory on the Carceral State

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-207
Author(s):  
Juliette Barbera
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Carceral State ◽  
Research Framework ◽  
Research Production ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
And Control

For decades, both incarceration and research on the topic have proliferated. Disciplines within the Western sciences have studied the topic of incarceration through their respective lenses. Decades of data reflect trends and consequences of the carceral state, and based on that data the various disciplines have put forth arguments as to how the trends and consequences are of relevance to their respective fields of study. The research trajectory of incarceration research, however, overlooks the assumptions behind punishment and control and their institutionalization that produce and maintain the carceral state and its study. This omission of assumptions facilitates a focus on outcomes that serve to reinforce Western perspectives, and it contributes to the overall stagnation in the incarceration research produced in Western disciplines. An assessment of the study of the carceral state within the mainstream of American Political Development in the political science discipline provides an example of how the research framework contributes to the overall stagnation, even though the framework of the subfield allows for an historical institutionalization perspective. The theoretical perspectives of Cedric J. Robinson reveal the limits of Western lenses to critically assess the state. The alternative framework he provides to challenge the limits imposed on research production by Western perspectives applies to the argument presented here concerning the limitations that hamper the study of the carceral state.

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