Michael Javen Fortner
Biographic Data
| ID | 114267 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Javen Fortner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael Javen |
| FAMILY NAME | Fortner |
| SIGNATURE | FORTNER M J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Claremont McKenna College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6009-3486 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 37 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
“The People vs. Crack”: Drugs, Violence, and the Politics of Order Maintenance
This article examines how Black communities in New York City and Atlanta responded to the crack epidemic of the 1980s and how their grassroots activism shaped the rise of order-maintenance policing. Although much scholarship attributes the development of order-maintenance policing to top-down neoliberal and conservative forces, we demonstrate that residents—facing daily violence, open-air drug markets, and social collapse—demanded more aggressive…
Race, Class, Bitter Fruit, and the Big Apple: A Short Story
Racial Capitalism and City Politics: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis
Public Administration, Racial Capitalism, and the Problem of “Interest Convergence: ” A Commentary on Critical Race Theory
This essay reviews the analytic utility of critical race theory for contemporary studies of public policy, public administration, and nonprofit management. Highlighting and interrogating Derrick Bell’s theory of “interest convergence,” it discusses critical race theory’s insufficient attention to economics and class. It then builds on Cedric Robinson’s notion of racial capitalism to theorize the interaction of racism and capitalism and the impact…
Lisa L Miller, The Myth of Mob Rule: Violent Crime and Democratic Politics
J ulilly K ohler -H ausmann . Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America
“Whole neighborhoods have been effectively destroyed by addicts as by an invading army,” New York governor Nelson Rockefeller exclaimed in his annual state-of-the-state message in 1973. He explained, “We face the risk of undermining our will as people—and the ultimate destruction of our society as a whole” (91). Soon, the ambitious Republican signed his infamous program into law—a critical moment in the development of the American carceral state.…
The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race
On 10 January 2017, Barack Obama delivered his farewell address. He defended his record and preached American gospel—as he had come to divine it. The first black president praised individual pursuit of the American dream while stressing the “imperative to strive together” “to achieve a common good, a greater good.” These communitarian impulses also defined his statements on race. He implored minorities to connect their “own very real struggles fo…
Urban Citizenship and American Democracy
Urban Autonomy and Effective Citizenship
Response to Daniel Kato’s review of Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Urban Citizenship and American Democracy
Straight, No Chaser: Theory, History, and the Muting of the Urban State
This article reviews dominant urban political theories and argues that pluralism, public choice theory, and regime theory do not pay sufficient attention to the urban state and history. By “bringing the state back [into]” urban political theory, this article reveals the extent to which each dominant theoretical perspective represents a similar theme played again and again in different historical periods and institutional contexts. I argue that ci…
Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment
Aggressive policing and draconian sentencing have disproportionately imprisoned millions of African Americans for drug-related offenses. Michael Javen Fortner shows that in the 1970s these punitive policies toward addicts and pushers enjoyed the support of many working-class and middle-class blacks, angry about the chaos in their own neighborhoods
Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?” Reverend Oberia Dempsey and His Citizens War on Drugs
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The “Silent Majority” in Black and White: Invisibility and Imprecision in the Historiography of Mass Incarceration
Over the past decade, mass incarceration has received much scholarly attention from historians, social scientists, and legal scholars. Despite the substantive contributions of this research, the overreliance on functionalist and top–down political explanations has undermined its descriptive force and explanatory power. Many accounts fold the peculiarities and nuances of the “law and order” discourse of the late 1960s and early 1970s—the period du…
The new black politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and post-racial America
Michael Javen FortnerDepartment of Political Science/Department of Public Policy andAdministration, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, [email protected](c) 2014, Michael Javen Fortner
The Carceral State and the Crucible of Black Politics: An Urban History of the Rockefeller Drug Laws
While scholars have illuminated the effects of mass incarceration, the origins of the criminal justice policies that produced these outcomes remain unclear. Many explanations obscure as much as they reveal—in great measure because they either ignore or minimize the consequences of crime. Emphasizing the exploitation of white fears, the construction of black criminality, or the political strategies of Republican political elites, prevailing theori…
Trust in Black America: Race, Discrimination, and Politics by Shayla C. Nunnally
Racial Capitalism and City Politics: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis
The Carceral State and the Crucible of Black Politics: An Urban History of the Rockefeller Drug Laws
While scholars have illuminated the effects of mass incarceration, the origins of the criminal justice policies that produced these outcomes remain unclear. Many explanations obscure as much as they reveal—in great measure because they either ignore or minimize the consequences of crime. Emphasizing the exploitation of white fears, the construction of black criminality, or the political strategies of Republican political elites, prevailing theori…
Straight, No Chaser: Theory, History, and the Muting of the Urban State
This article reviews dominant urban political theories and argues that pluralism, public choice theory, and regime theory do not pay sufficient attention to the urban state and history. By “bringing the state back [into]” urban political theory, this article reveals the extent to which each dominant theoretical perspective represents a similar theme played again and again in different historical periods and institutional contexts. I argue that ci…
The “Silent Majority” in Black and White: Invisibility and Imprecision in the Historiography of Mass Incarceration
Over the past decade, mass incarceration has received much scholarly attention from historians, social scientists, and legal scholars. Despite the substantive contributions of this research, the overreliance on functionalist and top–down political explanations has undermined its descriptive force and explanatory power. Many accounts fold the peculiarities and nuances of the “law and order” discourse of the late 1960s and early 1970s—the period du…
Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?” Reverend Oberia Dempsey and His Citizens War on Drugs
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Race, Class, Bitter Fruit, and the Big Apple: A Short Story
Public Administration, Racial Capitalism, and the Problem of “Interest Convergence: ” A Commentary on Critical Race Theory
This essay reviews the analytic utility of critical race theory for contemporary studies of public policy, public administration, and nonprofit management. Highlighting and interrogating Derrick Bell’s theory of “interest convergence,” it discusses critical race theory’s insufficient attention to economics and class. It then builds on Cedric Robinson’s notion of racial capitalism to theorize the interaction of racism and capitalism and the impact…
The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race
On 10 January 2017, Barack Obama delivered his farewell address. He defended his record and preached American gospel—as he had come to divine it. The first black president praised individual pursuit of the American dream while stressing the “imperative to strive together” “to achieve a common good, a greater good.” These communitarian impulses also defined his statements on race. He implored minorities to connect their “own very real struggles fo…
Trust in Black America: Race, Discrimination, and Politics by Shayla C. Nunnally
The Carceral State and the Crucible of Black Politics: An Urban History of the Rockefeller Drug Laws
While scholars have illuminated the effects of mass incarceration, the origins of the criminal justice policies that produced these outcomes remain unclear. Many explanations obscure as much as they reveal—in great measure because they either ignore or minimize the consequences of crime. Emphasizing the exploitation of white fears, the construction of black criminality, or the political strategies of Republican political elites, prevailing theori…
Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?” Reverend Oberia Dempsey and His Citizens War on Drugs
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The “Silent Majority” in Black and White: Invisibility and Imprecision in the Historiography of Mass Incarceration
Over the past decade, mass incarceration has received much scholarly attention from historians, social scientists, and legal scholars. Despite the substantive contributions of this research, the overreliance on functionalist and top–down political explanations has undermined its descriptive force and explanatory power. Many accounts fold the peculiarities and nuances of the “law and order” discourse of the late 1960s and early 1970s—the period du…
The new black politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and post-racial America
Michael Javen FortnerDepartment of Political Science/Department of Public Policy andAdministration, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, [email protected](c) 2014, Michael Javen Fortner
Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment
Aggressive policing and draconian sentencing have disproportionately imprisoned millions of African Americans for drug-related offenses. Michael Javen Fortner shows that in the 1970s these punitive policies toward addicts and pushers enjoyed the support of many working-class and middle-class blacks, angry about the chaos in their own neighborhoods
Urban Citizenship and American Democracy
Urban Autonomy and Effective Citizenship
Response to Daniel Kato’s review of Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Urban Citizenship and American Democracy
Straight, No Chaser: Theory, History, and the Muting of the Urban State
This article reviews dominant urban political theories and argues that pluralism, public choice theory, and regime theory do not pay sufficient attention to the urban state and history. By “bringing the state back [into]” urban political theory, this article reveals the extent to which each dominant theoretical perspective represents a similar theme played again and again in different historical periods and institutional contexts. I argue that ci…
The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race
On 10 January 2017, Barack Obama delivered his farewell address. He defended his record and preached American gospel—as he had come to divine it. The first black president praised individual pursuit of the American dream while stressing the “imperative to strive together” “to achieve a common good, a greater good.” These communitarian impulses also defined his statements on race. He implored minorities to connect their “own very real struggles fo…
J ulilly K ohler -H ausmann . Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America
“Whole neighborhoods have been effectively destroyed by addicts as by an invading army,” New York governor Nelson Rockefeller exclaimed in his annual state-of-the-state message in 1973. He explained, “We face the risk of undermining our will as people—and the ultimate destruction of our society as a whole” (91). Soon, the ambitious Republican signed his infamous program into law—a critical moment in the development of the American carceral state.…
Public Administration, Racial Capitalism, and the Problem of “Interest Convergence: ” A Commentary on Critical Race Theory
This essay reviews the analytic utility of critical race theory for contemporary studies of public policy, public administration, and nonprofit management. Highlighting and interrogating Derrick Bell’s theory of “interest convergence,” it discusses critical race theory’s insufficient attention to economics and class. It then builds on Cedric Robinson’s notion of racial capitalism to theorize the interaction of racism and capitalism and the impact…
Lisa L Miller, The Myth of Mob Rule: Violent Crime and Democratic Politics
Racial Capitalism and City Politics: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis
Race, Class, Bitter Fruit, and the Big Apple: A Short Story
“The People vs. Crack”: Drugs, Violence, and the Politics of Order Maintenance
This article examines how Black communities in New York City and Atlanta responded to the crack epidemic of the 1980s and how their grassroots activism shaped the rise of order-maintenance policing. Although much scholarship attributes the development of order-maintenance policing to top-down neoliberal and conservative forces, we demonstrate that residents—facing daily violence, open-air drug markets, and social collapse—demanded more aggressive…
Political science (15 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (12 works) · Law (9 works) · Race, History, and American Society (8 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Criminology (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works)