The Politics of Major Policy Reform in Postwar America

Description

The Politics of Major Policy Reform in Postwar America examines the politics of recent landmark policy in areas such as homeland security, civil rights, health care, immigration and trade, and it does so within a broad theoretical and historical context. By considering the politics of major programmatic reforms in the United States since the Second World War - specifically, courses of action aimed at dealing with perceived public problems - a group of distinguished scholars sheds light not only on significant efforts to ameliorate widely recognized ills in domestic and foreign affairs but also on systemic developments in American politics and government. In sum, this volume provides a comprehensive understanding of how major policy breakthroughs are achieved, stifled, or compromised in a political system conventionally understood as resistant to major change.

Jeffery A. Jenkins is a Professor in the Department of Politics and Faculty Associate in the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. He has published more than thirty articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Studies in American Political Development. He is also the author (with Charles Stewart, III) of Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government (2013) and the editor (with Eric M. Patashnik) of Living Legislation: Durability, Change, and the Politics of American Lawmaking (2012). Sidney M. Milkis is the White Burkett Miller Professor in the Department of Politics and Faculty Associate in the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. He has written extensively on political history and American politics, with special attention to the presidency, political parties, and social movements. His books include The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal (1993); Political Parties and Constitutional Government: Remaking American Democracy (1999); Presidential Greatness (2000), co-authored with Marc Landy; The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-2011, 6th edition (2011), co-authored with Michael Nelson; and Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the Transformation of American Democracy (2009). He is the co-editor (with Jerome Mileur) of three volumes on twentieth-century political reform: Progressivism and the New Democracy (1999), The New Deal and the Triumph of Liberalism (2002), and The Great Society and the High Tide of Liberalism (2005). His articles have been published in Perspectives on Politics, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Political Science Quarterly, the Journal of Policy History, Studies in American Political Development, and numerous edited volumes.

'Framed by a resonant introduction, this volume powerfully places policy content at the heart of American lawmaking and statecraft. Here is that unusual instance when a collection of rigorously researched and argued essays constitutes a large and compelling intellectual contribution, a manifesto for a content-rich political science.' Ira I. Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University 'Represents a major contribution to the study of American public policy. Jeffery Jenkins and Sidney Milkis have brought together an exceptional group of scholars full of insights into how major policy breakthroughs are achieved, blocked, or deeply compromised.' Eric Schickler, Professor, Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Endowed Chair, and Department Chair of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley 'This first-rate group of scholars assembled by Jeffery Jenkins and Sidney Milkis illuminate how traditional governing arrangements - the separation of powers and federalism - have actually permitted this development and, in turn, been changed by it. Readers will learn a tremendous amount about a wide-ranging and highly relevant group of policy areas and, what's more, they will come to a new understanding of the American state itself.' Suzanne Mettler, Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions, Cornell University 'This superb book portrays a nation in the grip of 'policy-mindedness', not a flight into polarized gridlock. The result is a thoroughly Madisonian adaptation to the challenges of programmatic government.' Rick Valelly, Claude C. Smith '14 Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College