Suzanne Mettler
Biographic Data
| ID | 963267 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Suzanne Mettler |
| GIVEN NAMES | Suzanne |
| FAMILY NAME | Mettler |
| SIGNATURE | METTLER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cornell University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5165-3349 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1150 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Rural Politics in the United States
Scholars of American politics have recently turned their attention to rural politics, aiming to understand the late twentieth and early twenty-first century nationwide shift of white rural voters to the Republican Party and the ensuing rural–urban political divide. We review research that assesses the potential causes of the rise of place-based polarization, including political–economic transformation, racism, ethnocentrism, and the growing salie…
A rural-urban political divide among whom? Race, ethnicity, and political behavior across place
Over the past 30 years, the United States has developed a rural-urban political divide, as rural voters have become increasingly reliable Republican voters while long-term patterns of Democratic voting in the largest cities have also consolidated in many smaller cities and suburbs as well. Yet, although 1 in 4 rural dwellers now identify as people of color, research on the rural-urban divide has either mostly centered on the behavior and attitude…
Sequential Polarization: The Development of the Rural-Urban Political Divide, 1976–2020
As recently as the early 1990s, Americans living in rural and urban areas voted similarly in presidential elections, yet in the decades since, they have diverged sharply as rural people in all regions of the country have increasingly supported the Republican Party. We seek to explain the sources of this growing cleavage by examining two interrelated processes of change: political-economic transformation that elevated many urban areas and marginal…
The Crisis of American Democracy in Historical Context
The present is not the only time in American history that American democracy has been at serious risk of backsliding. When we place recent developments in a broader historical and comparative context, we discover that any of four known threats to democracy can weaken it and lead to backsliding. These include political polarization, conflict over who belongs in the political community, high and rising economic inequality, and executive aggrandizem…
Policy Threat, Partisanship, and the Case of the Affordable Care Act
How do political conditions influence whether public support develops for a new policy? Specifically, does the presence of partisan polarization and a viable threat to a policy's continuation prevent the emergence of such support? We propose a theoretical framework that considers how policy feedback may be affected by the presence or absence of both policy threat and polarization. We argue that a threat is likely to increase policy salience and t…
The Pathways of Policy Feedback: How Health Reform Influences Political Efficacy and Participation
How do policy feedback effects occur? A growing number of rigorous empirical studies provide evidence that new policies can, indeed, stimulate new politics, such as increased political participation among citizens, but greater understanding is needed of the underlying mechanisms and long‐term policy feedback effects. This paper puts forth a dynamic theory of the mechanisms through which policy experiences may influence political participation, fo…
The Growing Rural-Urban Political Divide and Democratic Vulnerability
Throughout American history and as recently as the early 1990s, each of the major political parties included both rural and some urban constituencies, but since then the nation has become deeply divided geographically. Rural areas have become increasingly dominated by the Republican Party and urban places by the Democratic Party. This growing rural-urban divide is fostering polarization and democratic vulnerability. We examine why this cleavage m…
Democratic Vulnerabilities and Pathways for Reform
democracy; backsliding; political development; institutions; reform
Democratic Resilience: Can the United States Withstand Rising Polarization
Politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized in recent decades. Both political elites and everyday citizens are divided into rival and mutually antagonistic partisan camps, with each camp questioning the political legitimacy and democratic commitments of the other side. Does this polarization pose threats to democracy itself? What can make some democratic institutions resilient in the face of such challenges? Democratic Resilie…
Revealing the “Hidden welfare state”: How policy information influences public attitudes about tax expenditures
In this article, we explore how specific policy information shapes public opinion toward the “hidden welfare state” of tax expenditures. These politically and socioeconomically consequential policies—most of which bestow their greatest benefits on upper-income people—are complex and opaque, and scholars’ understanding of citizen attitudes toward them is limited. In response, we use a randomized, general population, online survey experiment to tes…
Public Policy and Political Dysfunction: The Policyscape, Policy Maintenance, and Oversight
We provide an overview of the concept of the "policyscape," a dense network of policies that structure the current political order, and then assess its relationship with four aspects of American institutional behavior: the creation of new policies; the maintenance of existing policies and programs; policy "thickening" that may lead to additional gridlock and dysfunction during what is an already laborious lawmaking process; and the monitoring of …
The Paradox of the Earned Income Tax Credit: Appreciating Benefits but not Their Source
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is widely recognized as the United States’ most effective contemporary policy for reducing poverty, and scholars have found that it elevates recipients’ sense of social inclusion. This raises the question of how it influences recipients’ civic engagement, namely their attitudes about government and political participation. We draw on policy feedback scholarship to consider expectations. Then we use a unique dat…
The Trump Presidency and American Democracy: A Historical and Comparative Analysis
To many observers across the political spectrum, American democracy appears under threat. What does the Trump presidency portend for American politics? How much confidence should we have in the capacity of American institutions to withstand this threat? We argue that understanding what is uniquely threatening to democracy requires looking beyond the particulars of Trump and his presidency. Instead, it demands a historical and comparative perspect…
Making What Government Does Apparent to Citizens: Policy Feedback Effects, Their Limitations, and How They Might Be Facilitated
Public policies sometimes generate "policy feedback effects," reshaping public opinion and political participation among beneficiaries or the public generally, often with the effects of generating supportive constituencies that help to sustain the program. Yet such effects do not always occur; in fact, despite that Americans use more social policies than ever, antipathy to government runs high-evidence of a seeming "government-citizen disconnect.…
The Government-Citizen Disconnect
Policy Feedback Theory
Policy Feedback Theory sits at the intersection of the two approaches: it brings political considerations to bear on policy analysis, assessing how policies affect crucial aspects of governance. It can also enrich studies of the policy process by highlighting how policies created previously affect the likelihood and form of future policy creation. The initial impetus for studies of policy feedback emerged from the historical institutionalist trad…
When and How New Policy Creates New Politics: Examining the Feedback Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Public Opinion
Following E. E. Schattschneider’s observation that “a new policy creates a new politics,” scholars of “policy feedback” have theorized that policies influence subsequent political behavior and public opinion. Recent studies observe, however, that policy feedback does not always occur and the form it takes varies considerably. To explain such variation, we call for policy feedback studies to draw more thoroughly on public opinion research. We theo…
Minutes of April 2016, Apsa Council Meeting
Hochschild discussed her goals to improve the annual meeting, as well as improving
The Policyscape and the Challenges of Contemporary Politics to Policy Maintenance
Contemporary political life takes place amid a “policyscape,” a landscape densely laden with policies created in the past that have themselves become established institutions, bearing consequences for governing operations, the policy agenda, and political behavior. Far from being static, policies often develop over time in ways that could not have been foreseen by their creators, due to dynamics they themselves generate, including design effects,…
Twenty Years On: Paul Pierson’s Dismantling the Welfare State
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 Oxford Handbook of American Political Development
Scholars working in or sympathetic to American political development (APD) share a commitment to accurately understanding the history of American politics – and thus they question stylized facts about America’s political evolution. Like other approaches to American politics, APD prizes analytical rigor, data collection, the development and testing of theory, and the generation of provocative hypotheses. Much APD scholarship indeed overlaps with t…
The Carceral State and American Political Development
Since mid-century, the capacity of the United States to punish and surveil its citizenry has undergone tremendous expansion. Yet this phenomenal transformation and its repercussions for citizens has engendered surprisingly little discussion among scholars of American political development (APD). Nor have criminal justice scholars been sufficiently attentive to the intersection between democratic development and the carceral state. In this essay, …
Obama and the Challenge of Submerged Policies
Reconstituting the Submerged State
This chapter discusses the challenges faced by Obama as he sought to reform social welfare policy, and how these may likely curtail the perceived and actual political effectiveness even of his policy successes. It focuses on tax expenditures and higher education policy, and also gives some attention to health care reform. It shows that the nature of the submerged state requires reformers to reveal its existence and how it functions to the public.…
The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy
The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics
Democracies, and the citizenries that stand at their center, are not natural phenomena; they are made and sustained through politics. Government policies can play a crucial role in this process, shaping the things publics believe and want, the ways citizens view themselves and others, and how they understand and act toward the political system. Yet, while political scientists have said a great deal about how publics influence policies, they know …
Bringing the State Back In to Civic Engagement: Policy Feedback Effects of the G.I. Bill for World War II Veterans
American civic engagement soared in the mid-twentieth century, succeeding an era in which national government had become more involved in citizens' lives than ever before. I examine the effects of the G.I. Bill's educational provisions for veterans' subsequent memberships in civic organizations and political activity. I consider theoretical arguments about how public social programs might affect civic involvement and advance a policy feedback app…
The Trump Presidency and American Democracy: A Historical and Comparative Analysis
To many observers across the political spectrum, American democracy appears under threat. What does the Trump presidency portend for American politics? How much confidence should we have in the capacity of American institutions to withstand this threat? We argue that understanding what is uniquely threatening to democracy requires looking beyond the particulars of Trump and his presidency. Instead, it demands a historical and comparative perspect…
When and How New Policy Creates New Politics: Examining the Feedback Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Public Opinion
Following E. E. Schattschneider’s observation that “a new policy creates a new politics,” scholars of “policy feedback” have theorized that policies influence subsequent political behavior and public opinion. Recent studies observe, however, that policy feedback does not always occur and the form it takes varies considerably. To explain such variation, we call for policy feedback studies to draw more thoroughly on public opinion research. We theo…
The Policyscape and the Challenges of Contemporary Politics to Policy Maintenance
Contemporary political life takes place amid a “policyscape,” a landscape densely laden with policies created in the past that have themselves become established institutions, bearing consequences for governing operations, the policy agenda, and political behavior. Far from being static, policies often develop over time in ways that could not have been foreseen by their creators, due to dynamics they themselves generate, including design effects,…
Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era
President Barack Obama came into office with a social welfare policy agenda that aimed to reconstitute what can be understood as the “submerged state”: a conglomeration of existing federal policies that incentivize and subsidize activities engaged in by private actors and individuals. By attempting to restructure the political economy involved in taxation, higher education policy, and health care, Obama ventured into a policy terrain that present…
Government Program Usage and Political Voice
Objectives. Despite the scope of U.S. social spending, we know little about cumulative program usage among individuals or how it may influence their political attitudes or behavior. This article examines program usage among citizens and probes the association of usage with program assessment and the likelihood of voting. Methods. We examine these issues using the 2005 Maxwell Poll, which uniquely asked respondents about both usage of 18 social pr…
The Pathways of Policy Feedback: How Health Reform Influences Political Efficacy and Participation
How do policy feedback effects occur? A growing number of rigorous empirical studies provide evidence that new policies can, indeed, stimulate new politics, such as increased political participation among citizens, but greater understanding is needed of the underlying mechanisms and long‐term policy feedback effects. This paper puts forth a dynamic theory of the mechanisms through which policy experiences may influence political participation, fo…
Civic Generation: Policy Feedback Effects of the GI Bill on Political Involvement over the Life Course
One of the chief explanations for the decline of social capital in the United States is the passing of the ‘civic generation’, those who came of age during the Depression and the Second World War. These Americans experienced greater government largesse than previous generations, yet we know little about how public programmes influenced their subsequent involvement in public life. This article draws on policy feedback theory to examine how the edu…
The Growing Rural-Urban Political Divide and Democratic Vulnerability
Throughout American history and as recently as the early 1990s, each of the major political parties included both rural and some urban constituencies, but since then the nation has become deeply divided geographically. Rural areas have become increasingly dominated by the Republican Party and urban places by the Democratic Party. This growing rural-urban divide is fostering polarization and democratic vulnerability. We examine why this cleavage m…
Sequential Polarization: The Development of the Rural-Urban Political Divide, 1976–2020
As recently as the early 1990s, Americans living in rural and urban areas voted similarly in presidential elections, yet in the decades since, they have diverged sharply as rural people in all regions of the country have increasingly supported the Republican Party. We seek to explain the sources of this growing cleavage by examining two interrelated processes of change: political-economic transformation that elevated many urban areas and marginal…
States Rights, Women's Obligations
This abstract asks how the demise of the federal “entitlement” to welfare will affect how low-income single mothers will be governed. Historical-institutional analysis is used to predict how the states, given their regained authority, are likely to define eligibility and procedural rules for welfare. These expectations are tested by analyzing the new state plans for the administration of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families block grant prog…
Policy Threat, Partisanship, and the Case of the Affordable Care Act
How do political conditions influence whether public support develops for a new policy? Specifically, does the presence of partisan polarization and a viable threat to a policy's continuation prevent the emergence of such support? We propose a theoretical framework that considers how policy feedback may be affected by the presence or absence of both policy threat and polarization. We argue that a threat is likely to increase policy salience and t…
The Only Good Thing Was the G.I. Bill”: Effects of the Education and Training Provisions on African-American Veterans' Political Participation
The education and training benefits of the G.I. Bill of Rights are renowned for their redistributive effects among nonblack veterans, but their consequences for black veterans remain in question. Among non-blacks, the provisions are known to have expanded access to education across class lines, and to have generated positive socioeconomic consequences. They also fostered greater postwar involvement in civic associations and political activities, …
The Paradox of the Earned Income Tax Credit: Appreciating Benefits but not Their Source
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is widely recognized as the United States’ most effective contemporary policy for reducing poverty, and scholars have found that it elevates recipients’ sense of social inclusion. This raises the question of how it influences recipients’ civic engagement, namely their attitudes about government and political participation. We draw on policy feedback scholarship to consider expectations. Then we use a unique dat…
On Race and Policy History: A Dialogue about the G.I. Bill
We have independently analyzed the effects of the G.I. Bill's widely-utilized education and training benefits, and reached different conclusions. One of us argues that the implementation of these benefits, especially in the South, helped widen the income and wealth gaps between whites and blacks and further marginalized many African Americans; the other considers them to have been a rare example of a relatively inclusive policy, one that fostered…
American Political Development from Citizens' Perspective: Tracking Federal Government's Presence in Individual Lives over Time
Although scholars of American political development (APD) have helped transform many aspects of the study of U.S. politics over the last quarter-century, they have barely begun to use the powerful analytical tools of this approach to elucidate the relationship between government and citizens. APD research has probed deeply into the processes of state-building and the creation and implementation of specific policies, yet has given little attention…
States' rights, women's obligations: Contemporary welfare reform in historical perspective
Federalism, Gender, & the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
The constitutional revolution of the New Deal produced the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the first national labor standards law in the United States. Yet, as this article shows, several occupational categories of women workers who needed the coverage were excluded from the legislation, creating a gender division in a seemingly gender-neutral law. Thus, while men were guaranteed new economic rights by the national government, many women remain…
The Creation of the G.I. Bill of Rights of 1944: Melding Social and Participatory Citizenship Ideals
The G.I. Bill of Rights, formally known as the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944, remains in the public consciousness as one of the most significant social policies ever enacted in the United States. Established for returning veterans of World War II, its terms of coverage were strikingly broad and generous. Fifty-one percent of veterans used the educational provisions: 2.2 million pursued a college education or graduate degree, and 5.6 milli…
Making What Government Does Apparent to Citizens: Policy Feedback Effects, Their Limitations, and How They Might Be Facilitated
Public policies sometimes generate "policy feedback effects," reshaping public opinion and political participation among beneficiaries or the public generally, often with the effects of generating supportive constituencies that help to sustain the program. Yet such effects do not always occur; in fact, despite that Americans use more social policies than ever, antipathy to government runs high-evidence of a seeming "government-citizen disconnect.…
A rural-urban political divide among whom? Race, ethnicity, and political behavior across place
Over the past 30 years, the United States has developed a rural-urban political divide, as rural voters have become increasingly reliable Republican voters while long-term patterns of Democratic voting in the largest cities have also consolidated in many smaller cities and suburbs as well. Yet, although 1 in 4 rural dwellers now identify as people of color, research on the rural-urban divide has either mostly centered on the behavior and attitude…
Democratic Vulnerabilities and Pathways for Reform
democracy; backsliding; political development; institutions; reform
Gender and the Welfare State: New Research on the Origins and Consequences of Social Policy Regimes
Dividing Social Citizenship by Gender: The Implementation of Unemployment Insurance and Aid to Dependent Children, 1935–1950
The Social Security Act of 1935 is widely considered to have established an American welfare state that is “two-tiered” or “two-track” in character, and which divided American social citizenship by gender.This depiction is commonplace; for a recent example of its use, see Dia ne Sainsbury, Gender Equality and Welfare States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 28–29. It seems to have originated in Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, …
Federalism, Gender, & the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
The constitutional revolution of the New Deal produced the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the first national labor standards law in the United States. Yet, as this article shows, several occupational categories of women workers who needed the coverage were excluded from the legislation, creating a gender division in a seemingly gender-neutral law. Thus, while men were guaranteed new economic rights by the national government, many women remain…
Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience
Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism in New Deal Public Policy
Rich with implications for current debates over citizenship and welfare policy, this book provides a detailed historical account of how governing institutions and public policies shape social status and civic life.
Dividing Social Citizenship by Gender: The Implementation of Unemployment Insurance and Aid to Dependent Children, 1935–1950
The Social Security Act of 1935 is widely considered to have established an American welfare state that is “two-tiered” or “two-track” in character, and which divided American social citizenship by gender.This depiction is commonplace; for a recent example of its use, see Dia ne Sainsbury, Gender Equality and Welfare States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 28–29. It seems to have originated in Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, …
The Stratification of Social Citizenship: Gender and Federalism in the Formation of Old Age Insurance and Aid to Dependent Children
Recently, scholars have shown that welfare state development, across nations, has often incorporated social groups in distinct ways that stratify and divide the citizenry.1 Citizenship has become stratified in terms of gender as policymakers have treated men and women differently in the policymaking process, perpetuating ascribed roles and institutionalizing gender inequality. The American welfare state that was fashioned in the New Deal has long…
Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism in New Deal Public Policy
Journal Article Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism in New Deal Public Policy. By Suzanne Mettler. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. xvi, 239 pp. Cloth, $49.95, ISBN 0-8014-3329-0. Paper, $18.95, ISBN 0-8014-8546-0.) Get access Cynthia Harrison Cynthia Harrison George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 86, Issue 1, June 19…
Welfare's End
Journal Article Welfare's End. By Gwendolyn Mink. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. xii, 180 pp. $21.00, ISBN 0-8014-3347-9.) Get access Suzanne Mettler Suzanne Mettler Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 86, Issue 1, June 1999, Pages 337–338, https://doi.org/10.2307/2567567 Published: 01 June 1999
States Rights, Women's Obligations
This abstract asks how the demise of the federal “entitlement” to welfare will affect how low-income single mothers will be governed. Historical-institutional analysis is used to predict how the states, given their regained authority, are likely to define eligibility and procedural rules for welfare. These expectations are tested by analyzing the new state plans for the administration of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families block grant prog…
Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism in New Deal Public Policy
States' rights, women's obligations: Contemporary welfare reform in historical perspective
Gender and the Welfare State: New Research on the Origins and Consequences of Social Policy Regimes
Bringing the State Back In to Civic Engagement: Policy Feedback Effects of the G.I. Bill for World War II Veterans
American civic engagement soared in the mid-twentieth century, succeeding an era in which national government had become more involved in citizens' lives than ever before. I examine the effects of the G.I. Bill's educational provisions for veterans' subsequent memberships in civic organizations and political activity. I consider theoretical arguments about how public social programs might affect civic involvement and advance a policy feedback app…
The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics
Democracies, and the citizenries that stand at their center, are not natural phenomena; they are made and sustained through politics. Government policies can play a crucial role in this process, shaping the things publics believe and want, the ways citizens view themselves and others, and how they understand and act toward the political system. Yet, while political scientists have said a great deal about how publics influence policies, they know …
Civic Generation: Policy Feedback Effects of the GI Bill on Political Involvement over the Life Course
One of the chief explanations for the decline of social capital in the United States is the passing of the ‘civic generation’, those who came of age during the Depression and the Second World War. These Americans experienced greater government largesse than previous generations, yet we know little about how public programmes influenced their subsequent involvement in public life. This article draws on policy feedback theory to examine how the edu…
The Only Good Thing Was the G.I. Bill”: Effects of the Education and Training Provisions on African-American Veterans' Political Participation
The education and training benefits of the G.I. Bill of Rights are renowned for their redistributive effects among nonblack veterans, but their consequences for black veterans remain in question. Among non-blacks, the provisions are known to have expanded access to education across class lines, and to have generated positive socioeconomic consequences. They also fostered greater postwar involvement in civic associations and political activities, …
The Creation of the G.I. Bill of Rights of 1944: Melding Social and Participatory Citizenship Ideals
The G.I. Bill of Rights, formally known as the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944, remains in the public consciousness as one of the most significant social policies ever enacted in the United States. Established for returning veterans of World War II, its terms of coverage were strikingly broad and generous. Fifty-one percent of veterans used the educational provisions: 2.2 million pursued a college education or graduate degree, and 5.6 milli…
How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State
Book Review| August 01 2006 How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State Andrea Louise Campbell. How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. 229 pp. $52.50 cloth; $19.95 paper. Suzanne Mettler Suzanne Mettler Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google J Health Polit Policy Law (2006) 31 (4): 859–862. h…
American Political Development from Citizens' Perspective: Tracking Federal Government's Presence in Individual Lives over Time
Although scholars of American political development (APD) have helped transform many aspects of the study of U.S. politics over the last quarter-century, they have barely begun to use the powerful analytical tools of this approach to elucidate the relationship between government and citizens. APD research has probed deeply into the processes of state-building and the creation and implementation of specific policies, yet has given little attention…
Government Program Usage and Political Voice
Objectives. Despite the scope of U.S. social spending, we know little about cumulative program usage among individuals or how it may influence their political attitudes or behavior. This article examines program usage among citizens and probes the association of usage with program assessment and the likelihood of voting. Methods. We examine these issues using the 2005 Maxwell Poll, which uniquely asked respondents about both usage of 18 social pr…
On Race and Policy History: A Dialogue about the G.I. Bill
We have independently analyzed the effects of the G.I. Bill's widely-utilized education and training benefits, and reached different conclusions. One of us argues that the implementation of these benefits, especially in the South, helped widen the income and wealth gaps between whites and blacks and further marginalized many African Americans; the other considers them to have been a rare example of a relatively inclusive policy, one that fostered…
Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era
President Barack Obama came into office with a social welfare policy agenda that aimed to reconstitute what can be understood as the “submerged state”: a conglomeration of existing federal policies that incentivize and subsidize activities engaged in by private actors and individuals. By attempting to restructure the political economy involved in taxation, higher education policy, and health care, Obama ventured into a policy terrain that present…
The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy
Obama and the Challenge of Submerged Policies
Reconstituting the Submerged State
This chapter discusses the challenges faced by Obama as he sought to reform social welfare policy, and how these may likely curtail the perceived and actual political effectiveness even of his policy successes. It focuses on tax expenditures and higher education policy, and also gives some attention to health care reform. It shows that the nature of the submerged state requires reformers to reveal its existence and how it functions to the public.…
The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development
Scholars working in or sympathetic to American political development (APD) share a commitment to accurately understanding the history of American politics – and thus they question stylized facts about America’s political evolution. Like other approaches to American politics, APD prizes analytical rigor, data collection, the development and testing of theory, and the generation of provocative hypotheses. Much APD scholarship indeed overlaps with t…
Political science (43 works) · Politics (36 works) · Law (35 works) · Sociology (28 works) · Law (23 works) · Economics (21 works) · Public Administration (20 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (17 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (16 works) · Public Administration (16 works)