Triumphs of Moderation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen M. Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Executive Director ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Local People ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Local Power ◽  
Office Of Economic Opportunity

This chapter introduces Craven Operation Progress’s new executive director who desired to ensure more poor people were reached, especially the white poor who were participating in very low numbers. A moderate compared to the previous director, he also sought to cooperate more with the local people and move COP in a less controversial direction. North Carolina Fund and Office of Economic Opportunity leaders generally distrusted the new director and believed he was too accommodating to the local power structure at the expense of those being served by COP. Yet despite such criticisms, some of COP’s greatest successes begin to show during Monte’s tenure, particularly within the Manpower training program. This chapter also details how black and whites on the COP board generally see the need to cooperate and work together for the sake of the community.

An Unexpected Rise in Outside Intervention

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen M. Hawkins
Keyword(s):  
Executive Director ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Community Action ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Department Of Labor ◽  
The North ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Office Of Economic Opportunity

This chapter discusses the increased intervention from the Office of Economic Opportunity and the North Carolina Fund in Craven Operation Progress matters. Federal officials within both the OEO and the Department of Labor had begun to conclude, similarly to Fund staff, that local control of community action would never allow the types of social and institutional change they believed were necessary to meet the needs of the poor. From their perspective in Washington, D.C., too many businessmen, elected officials, and other power-structure types served on local boards. Moreover, these men and women were either incapable of making or unwilling to make the kinds of decisions likely to enhance the poor’s political influence or economic standing. Eventually, save for the rare instances in which the poor made up a majority of a Community Action Agency board, local community action experiments began to be seen as a roadblock to the War on Poverty’s goals of improving opportunities and justice for indigent populations (especially in the South, where many of the long-term poor were black). The executive director ultimately resigns following pressure from both groups to step down.

scholarly journals How Johnson Fought the War on Poverty: The Economics and Politics of Funding at the Office of Economic Opportunity

2014 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha J. Bailey ◽  
Nicolas J. Duquette
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
War On Poverty ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Office Of Economic Opportunity ◽  
Economic Opportunity Act ◽  
Political Variables ◽  
Economics And Politics

This article presents a quantitative analysis of the geographic distribution of spending through the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). Using newly assembled state- and county-level data, the results show that the Johnson administration directed funding in ways consistent with the War on Poverty's rhetoric of fighting poverty and racial discrimination: poorer areas and those with a greater share of nonwhite residents received systematically more funding. In contrast to New Deal spending, political variables explain very little of the variation in EOA funding. The smaller role of politics may help explain the strong backlash against the War on Poverty's programs.

scholarly journals Changing Nature of Power and Leadership: How do They Matter in Rural Nepal?

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 79-89
Author(s):  
Mahendra Sapkota
Keyword(s):  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Local Power ◽  
To Come ◽  
Rural Nepal ◽  
Ontological Position

Globally, power and leadership are considered as two unavoidable factors of social change and local development. In Nepal’s federal context, the nexus of power and leadership has been less addressed in academic research though most of the studies are focused on local governance. The present study attempts to analyze the nature of leadership and its power structure in the context of rural Nepal. It follows a critical ontological position of the development of power and leadership. Methodologically, a complete leadership of Dogana village in Suddhodhan Rural Municipality of Rupandehi district (Lumbini Province) was undertaken to assess the rural leadership. It is found that the most important factor for holding the rural leadership was ‘affiliation with the political party’, which was followed by ‘well-being ranking’ and ‘caste/ ethnic status’ of the leadership. The rural leaders used to change their policies and strategies to create and sustain power, such as doing multiple professions and building networks other than politics. The paper, therefore, concludes that a significant change occurred in leadership pattern and power structure of rural Nepal from informal to formal, and less inclusive to more inclusive and representative. Despite this, the changes are still elite-centric, politically vested, and economically favorable either to the upper-class people or middle-class mediators (bichauliyas). The study predicts that the contestations in leadership and power-sharing could be more critical in the days to come with the implementation of federalism in the rural context. The implication of this study largely relies on the context of local power structure and village politics in Nepal.

Local Power Structure in an Indian State

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-169
Author(s):  
Liyiyu ◽  
Abhijit Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
Power Structure ◽  
Local Power ◽  
Indian State

Mississippi Republicans and the Politics of Poverty

2020 ◽  
pp. 150-175
Author(s):  
Emma J. Folwell
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Color Blindness ◽  
War On Poverty ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Massive Resistance ◽  
Richard Nixon ◽  
Office Of Economic Opportunity ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

Chapter six explores the impact of the election of Richard Nixon on the war on poverty. It uncovers the conversations in the new Republican administration regarding the fate of the war on poverty, from questions over whether to rename the Office of Economic Opportunity to the appointment of Don Rumsfeld as OEO director. The chapter then moves on to discuss the way in which the evolution of massive resistance after 1965 and white opposition to the war on poverty shaped and contributed to emerging strands of conservative Republicanism in Mississippi. It places Mississippi’s “conservative color-blindness” in the broader context of the rise of the sunbelt South. Finally, the chapter illustrates the ways in which grassroots conservative groups—particularly women—were central to forging an ostensibly race neutral war against the war on poverty that was vital to the growing Mississippi Republican Party.

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