/ 8 V tpftt includes only the major social spending programíjjesi §mý fhe ejUďršt indicators of economic or employment jppticieSj ang orly the pcjSJ^ Second World War period. To understand Americ^p FlftHl <• polície^, }rt the sense of public lines of social speriding, taxih^ top pyjflötit, ijriq economic strategies that influence people^ chalices jh (iffy tjrie ftit(SJ gp beyond the discussion of recent history ahd bp^môj* AiTieticirt developments in the light of repent theoiretícál ádVi hues, til eMrnitljng the last century of American public policies in this >yjt|tííř set^e, pne eafi discern two paradoxes. The first paradox is the erratic pattern' of the ht&jpfy pf Ampfican public policies. According to one influential {node! of \yest^i'n Evirppeftt» history, the development of social insurance policies pyápĽÉc} lltíltifígiyi but in a unilinear direction (Flora and After, l^lífs From the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth pj;Jiít|ty tlieťé \ýäS 4 period of experimentation, as different Scheines \yeťo t^sfe^ The jltíist phase, occurring between the wars, saw the coiisoliqs|fíjltí pf tjie social insurance experiments pf the previous period) Imttlgdjdtelý ftfléŕ the Second World War most countries complete^ '& pfpftie °f Spcial insurance policies, enacting insurance ag^ins* the $1$ jhlíft tyPe9 of Hsk, In the postwar period, there was steady grd^th % pPYéfägé arid expenditures. Although the model includes only sqt}áí insurance afld does not describe the pattern pf every Western Éviŕb^íiti polity, one can use if for purposes of comparison because the hisppfy pf US public policies departs dramatically from it. American public policies did not merely jafj behhtd European innovations while following the same pattern) hpWóyeť arrested and thwarted, as perhaps was the case with Japan, Jhstěíía!, the history of American public, policies exhibited a pattern pi ?ij|zags that can be divided into four somewhat different1 periods! in me Me nineteenth century, the United States was ä leader in activist pyqllc policies. These policIěT included a primitive old age pensions systtím, a public employment programme and a macroecpriorpic pplipy on tariffs. These policies, however, were seen by middleTcjass American reformers as corruption and as obstacles to placing ppljqies Öti a tnodern basis, as 294 EDWIN AMENTA AND THEDA SKOCPOL defined by European innovations. In the second phase, running from the turn of the century to 1930, rnanv of these initial policies "were undermined, but were not replaced as the United States fell behind other rich nations in the development of modern public policies. The period from^l930 to 1950 witnessed thp heroic period of American p"üBlicpöficies,"as America was once again briefly a leader, constructing innovative public policies and planning even more progressive ones. Needless to say, this phase was mainly a failure. America fell behind aSääÍrithe post-war period, with only a brief period of innovation in the SSB^^......■............_~^—.„.. ^ Lrreat as the influence of twentieth-century policy innovations have / I been, American public policies of the late twentieth century closely I resemble the policies of the late nineteenth century. This is the second paradox. The following five characteristics are common to both centuries: (1) an emphasis on spending programmes with divisible rather than collective benefits, and epherneral rather than permahěntTíeněfits; (2) a system of taxation that was largely a product of wartime?*but r ' l 1 («WWW**"* . ^„^.iiMrtlWWiiWíftaSW.*.^ afterwards used tor peacetime revenue purposes and overburdened with distributive and economic goals; (3) the reliance on nationalistic macroeconomic policies, avoiding both classical market liberalism and more detailed and selective economic interventions; (4) an extensive, but ambiguous public employment system not legitimated in political discourse; (o; a selectivist social spending policy with a division between two types of programmes: generous programmes, usually administered by the national government,' whose recípÍeřiitš™'Tncluding certain groups of veterans, the aged, and widows, have been considered deserving; meagre programmes, usually administered by lower units of go^nment, YvKoše recipients "have been considered undeserving and have been subject to surveillance. **■***»■•«*■••''' To explain the distinctiveness of American public policies is to resolve j these paradoxes.Why did American public policies follow the zigzagging •"' historical pattern that they did? Why do American public policies of the ■late twentieth century resemble die policies of the nineteenth century? Although the political class-struggle model helps to explain post-Second World War developments in spending and innovations, the model as usually constructed cannot explain the developments in the nineteenth century or many of the characteristics of public policies. One needs a model including the roles, of the state, political parties, and crises. Briefly, we argue that American state political institutions made it likely that.,public policies would be early in appearance and pre-modern in form. Changes in the political party system and the wrenching influence ,• i oT.crises.made.itpossíble.to'.overcome.tijese.predispositions and account ^ *■*• ^ for the pace of change and many of the characteristics of the policies. In «'510^' »he end, the influence of the parties and crises only partly overcame the AMERICAN ppuqV Di^fi^gflyEftfesS 295 mediating influence of state political mstituttódSy arid nineteenth-century» policies were reasserted, Before these rlccjleS can be solved, a history * qf "the "four phases of American public ppjicifS is tleeded - to reveal their peculiarities and to flesh out. their h^anifjSstationS íh current policies. The Beginning and the Eíid pif Pf e>ittqderii Public Policies The public policies of late nineteenui^céfltúl-y America were notable for their comparatively high' levels of spendiiig ííttd foť their distributive or patronage character. The most expensive experiment in patronage-based social policy was the CivUwar£erisifc|nsvj|terfl. Ir} this context, patronage is not corruption, oTSr^ámg1aws%r péfsp|IaÍ or political gain( although corruption was rampant. By defihitionj patronage benefits can be divided amongst constituents or tirned with RqljdĎl^'^s^tetipííí^b^Lthey a.re defined in opposition to.. aUtpmatip and coi^ptiye benefits accruing to large categorical groups. The more discretiq|t iriVplved in the benefit, the greater the element of patronage,1 ^he |ieHs}pri systefli of the Civil War period (1861-5) was established as a'Catjägp^ipaj Scheme üf payments to soldiers injured in battle and to widows of söldje$ kjílläd Iň flót|ujl, but by the end of the century this programme hájd boéii tra^Srfiuted ln):o (t sort of discretionary old age and survivors' pjätišjjjtt: /Í fíeC0r)tt aspect of nineteenth-century public policy cohštitútejd öj ^jŕjijtíye^ pjíbjioetňploy-mentprográmme: federal government jptyS " ftjŕ íhRSP !1y]tjv%lf$ble poTitical'coňnecSÔns.' Peiisións and pbMti^i^ Wéŕe futlided rpalply With revenues generated by a systehi qf tariffs stijéjijgtjíehéd gr^lly paring the Civil War. The tariff system was also ^ sQjfřtijB pjf distribtitjvfá benefits, and,protection constirpTélíthe iilain ecoiicl^iijá Jipliby, Qn the 6ti|te and local levels of government, innovations jj^j*j$ made in Jl|řjS|ilCiuhlic education, a form of early American S^cjláí Šjp^fltiihĚj! tl'iiit ŠtopdapäTt from the national programmes. The next period, from 1900 to 193Ö, r||||Sjd jhany öf thesejrends. These three decades include the twxj perfpas jÖipvi^Tfi^ltterlcän historiography as the Progressive Era and thjä tyfy^iries 4nd vyere notable for the rise of attempts a,t bureaufcrátio ^fcji'tii íujd. state building. A middle-class reform movement wjtli adriě^ej^' ijj bfitb political parties, as well as a short-lived political party* the íW'ť^'v'č fr|oVement sought to attack party machines by way of altering kfectpiťa| CillBg flrjd creating bureaucratic executive institutions at all léVeJs fcjjf gOVernfttent This movement helped to end Civil War peftkjtlitS ÍJŠ SeleptJYe old age insurance and numbered the days of using jthj ^pvej'timeht bureaucracy as an employment programme. The hatic-näl political dofttitiahce of the Repubhcans in the 1920s ensured ťríát tä^lť^^'t^^rt^jriyM. ,l'^,m^.n.t':ll,,? main economic policy, although tinft^$V0$%$#$ónm of "revenue. 296 EDWIN AMENTA ANP THEDA SKOCPOL instead, it was at the state and local levels that experiments in modern social spending policies began. The late nineteenth century: premature public policies The military origins of the „Civil War pension system have usually prevented it trom being considered a form, however primitive, of public social provision. But, before the end of its peculiar career, it grew to a system of greater size than early social insurance programmes elsewhere. As the system was originally devised by the Republican party, it benefited only war widows and injured veterans, and by the middle of the 1870s the number of claimants had started to drop. In 1879, however, the so-called Arrears Act became law; it gave incentives to press equivocal and sometimes false claims on the government, for it authorized the payment of all the benefits an injured or widowed party was due from the time of the alleged injury or death. Claims soared, and so too did the new numbers of recipients, for it was difficult to determine who was eligible. For one thing, claimants provided their own evidence. For another, the primitive bureaucracy and its political operatives could not have checked the stories even if they had desired to do so. A political coalition based on Republican congressmen with some northern Democratic support, spurred on by a newly activated soldiers' interest group, increased the coverage and then the benefits of the programme. In 1890, the so-called Dependent Pensions Act legislated benefits to almost anyone who served and could not perform manual labour, for whatever reason. In 19Ö4, the pension bureau considered old age a disability in itself; and other acts increased benefits. Benefits for widows tended to follow in the wake of legislation for disabled men, but with less money and more disqualifications based on style of life.2 Categorical as these bursts of legislation seemed, the benefits were nothing like automatic. There was always a waiting list of applicants, and politicians decided who would be pensioned, when, and at what rate. This aspect of the programme was more significant than the fact that some people received pensions illegally. The overall numbers of recipients grew regularly. In 1873, at the system's apparent peak, there were about a quarter of a million pension recipients. Due to the act of 1879, this number had more than doubled by 1889, approaching half a million. Under the influence of the 1890 legislation, the numbers of recipients reached a peak of nearly a.million by the. end of the century. Legislated increases in benefits continued after almost everyone who could possibly qualify was receiving a pension. To gain access to legislated increases in benefits required a similar process of applying and waiting. Pension expenditures constituted more than 40 per cent of AMERICAN) POLICY piSTÍf^íýfc^PS 297 government spending and more dip one ppf qéilt of* GNP by the middle of the 1890s (US Census, 1975, fr}. UÖ|, UÍ4). By the standards of modern social insujŕáftce, Ulis performance was perhaps unimpressive. The programme djd ftqt Select according to need or, as in the case of German social insurance^ ficcbrding to Work record. It provided benefits to those (npfthérneťs) \yhp had ifljide a mildly plausible case fór their importance ill presérWitg the Utlion, and it helped to háve a connection tö á ppliticat Organization, preferably Republican. For the late nineteenth century) however, &e performance was notable. A sizeable proportion of the Arkericafi aged received a pension. The more than Jialf a million elderly men oti the rolls translated to approximately 29 per cent of American inen 65 years old and older in 1910. And the amount of benefits cbmp^řefl favourably to those given in Germany or Britain. The average penäíbň fpr the disabled soldier in 1910 amounted to about 30 per cent bf average earnings, for widows, 25 per cent; in Britain, ah Old age pension feafßfc to 22 per cent of average annual earnings, and in Gerriiany, ábduf it per Cent (Skocpol et al., 1987). A second kind of national public policy cpiiCerhed the qřearJon of jobs fogDeo£]&Jl^ This policy was tied móre closely tq ppl|t}Cili activity: governmental positions went to party supporters, whose form of repayment usually included political work and a taxing of šajárjeäj Oh the national level, blatant use was made of the post office ahq tile tiiistpftis hötlSes, Unlike the Civil War pension system, this policy ^Srii}!- Used by professional politicians tó make rhetorical appeals to tilfe fejtfiJtotytg. Although civil service reform made some headway V/ith tlffl j}eftmetOil Act ftf 1Ö78, the number of federal government position ttYfjilflhie f B substantial (Keller, 1977; White, 1958).3 For tjhfe late jhltyéteěitith petip4ry and early twentieth century, there were more tháh ÍmQ?mw fi^Wl goyeitiment jobs available. For inštancie, in 189li pf th(5 ísý^4|eiVh|&h äfflßlqyiies of the federal government, more tharl §0 per éětit tyjW&fl >h tf\$ i'OSt office-All told, less than 22 per cent of federal civijiaij ^mpjcfyfeeS wet(5 classified as part of the competitive civil service (yß C^stis» 1975; p, 1103). There were many more at other levels of gqVöf pirjeijt$ bSpecjajly in cities, not to mention jobs with businesses allied fti jpcäj party machines or public works (Bridges, 1984). Álthpugh'thé ftdmbers, of Such jobs were inadequate and.the choice of recipiente mjtSed (Keyssai't 1986), in comparative perspective this ambighous; phbijib b'hpíóyítterit programme stands out. A complex tanffsvstentpaid for diese prit&ril^ijiieSi From immediately after the Civil \ya7ulrOTe First World Ä %f M'tömfa #«pH about half of the revenues of the, ii^rionäl j|tí^J$$iBitL \ $IWÍVläty high figure. In í89Ó',for'instance,'c^tp^'p^!Í|lpJ'lt p|if cent of hatioristf 298 EDWIN AMENTA AND TřJEDA SKOCPOL revenue, compared to about 21 per cent in Great Britain (Keller, 1977, p. 307). The system was bposted during the Civil War and, unlike the primitive wartime income tax and other emergency internal taxes, tariffs were not rolled back after the war. Whenever the government began to run a deficit, upward adjustments in tariff schedules were passed. Eventually the system became the focus of partisan politics, with the resurgent Democratic party proposing to use the income tax to eclipse the tariff. In 1890, the same year that a Republican Congress transformed Civil War disability benefits into old age pensions, a tariff-stiffening bill was also passed. Tariffs were strengthened again when the realigning election of 1896 brought renewed Republican dominance.4 Fiscally lucrative as it was, the tariff system was much more than a means of revenue generation. In the tariff, the issues of revenue generation, distributive benefits and economic policy were bound together, and these other characteristics were at least as important as the first. Tariff protection constituted American macroeconomic policy even before the economic crisis of the late nineteenth century when many other countries turned to protection (Gourevitch, 1986). Like the turn-of-the-century Australian system, tariffs were used to defend established industries as well as to protect infant industries (Castles, 1985). Tariffs were used rhetorically to merge the interests of capitalists and industrial workers. Unlike the Australian system, American tariffs were not negotiated by representatives of organized capital and labour. The American tariff system was devised within congressional committees and party caucuses; attempts to rationalize tariff formation through tariff commissions failed. Moreover, the system was not combined with compulsory wage arbitration which was rejected at the turn of the century by the organized working class. As they would do for most of the next century, industrial workers and, capitalists fought wage battles more or less privately, except for the use of the courts by capitalists to stop strikes. The Republican party portrayed itself as the party of prosperity and the tariff as the means to prosperity and, with the aid of the depression of 1893, won over many industrial workers in their capacity as voters. Tariffs were also distributive benefits dominated by specific duties, not ad valorem schedules. Various interest groups turned congressional tariff-making into a political balancing act in party caucuses. This sometimes led to conflicts over the system. For instance, to keep together the political coalition for tariffs, in 1877 Republican party legislators successfully fought an attempt by industrialists to lower the schedules for raw materials used in industry and other attempts to remove tariffs from congressional control. The multifaceted nature of the tariffs underlined thejongrterrn.political wsäläess of tiie taxation system'. In an economy as competitive as the American one became, tariffs "could not forever AMERICAN pOl?cY pi^TJ^CítlVÍN^s 299 remain the main economic policy. Mdrf; }$öQrtantr they eventually stopped generating great amounts of reVeiftiÖ Http politicians yyere forced to devise new types of taxes. These t$$8 were harsjler, politically spealdng, for they could not be ppřtraýěd síiflultftriepusly as benefits to important groups. The final element of public policy jj fjie expansion of .American edJASÄÖSQi ran outside this national System íliicl ultimately did not suffer its fate. The early rise of American feducatjprt Ms well under way by the middle of the nineteenth century. By the C-ivil Wafj the dominance of public primary schools over private Sclippls had been established. American education in the nineteenth century tyas notable in comparative perspective fqr its high level of enrolments ahd its lack of formal stratification (Heidenheimer, 1981); Moreover > AtfleHcan public education flourished throughout the nineteenth céitrúťý vyhen it had begun to falter in other places such as Germany.. The fripvement to institutionalize public education was led by local IlepubliWn parties and professional educators, emerging first in rural areas (jyteyer et pj., 1979j Rubinson, 1986). This movement wpn its báttleS plainly in the localities, with enabling laws and subsidies frorh higher levels of government, and throughout American history e^ucfejoii policy has been characterized by state and lpcal control of the! primáry anxl s^COtldáťy schooling« This lack of connection with the national distributive sy&tetti of polities worked to the.advantage.of education polípiěS. \ýjl£tt (iŘtíOnaí public spending policies were attacked, prograrnihes at ttje WVfer levels of government survived. This was also the case fbŕ'tweŕitÍetkŕbeht|4Íl' Spíäritllhg policies developed at the state and local levels. fh? Progressive era and the Twenties: rotlké,kě $* Ilí0ffliilh&ntnry systcn'i ißpO^'iW The reforms of the Progressive Éra, 19OQ^$0, tyßp íipt Sleeping! (peal political machines mainly survived and statp-ptilloihg tyftó tyjty partial. But the pre-modern public policies pf the flifteteenth čéŕiHlly Were gradually defeated. Civil War pensions Wore pppÖSe.4 by Progressive ^ J reformers who. considered them ^orťupt, Tlje paösirig pf'tjie aged pensioners made their job easier as heyy j^j^jatjoi} WáS required to provide similar benefits to later Veterans; Mo häj}pn»! Social insurance programme replaced pensions^ partly he_gfjy§CreJ°WP^ feared that any nätfoflaHpfo^äm^ of Civil War pénšíóňs.'Tn any "case,"diedying-offof tiívtl yf^f pěrislphWs bought no fiscal-dividend because JÄJU^ with service-related č^biMďľ^m:^»ľwmWW^ JKriW at nearly aj;onšTánt level (Dillingham, 19.52* ph; (j t psš^ J 9.6", (?U> }h Anc* reformers" prevented the growth Of the 'bj^dpor syStefk Of DUblte 7. ) JUU EDWIN AMENTA AND THEDA SKOCPOL employment through governmental jobs. By 1916, the number of federal civilian employees had reached approximately 400,000, or about two-and-a-half times the number in 1891, but nearly three-quarters of appointments were on a merit basis (US Census, 1975, p. 1102). If spending policies no longer gave advantages to aged veterans and gave fewer advantages to party workers, the selectivist policies grew to ;. include additional widowed mothers, not only those formerly married to Civil War veterans. The first state-level public spending programme concerning one of the major risks was mothers' pensions legislation, a primitive form_ of family allowances. Enabling legislation was passed in 39 states iüeltween 1911 and 1919.jThe typical law allowed localities to provide means-tested pensions for widowed mothers, and later in some places to deserted mothers, to keep their children at home. These systems were staffed mainly by middle-class women and most programmes included strict rules of eligibility (Leff, 1973). In addition, state-level prograrnm£s_for_infants and exp_ectant_mothers were encouragečTby federal gränts-in-aid mandated by the Shepparď-Towner Act of 1921, an act that was repealed before the Great Depression. Like Civil War pensioners, these recipients were portrayed as exceptionally worthy of assistance. Other lasting state-level reforms did not upset this pattern. One sort of reform came in what was known as labour legislation, but .<. which was not typically initiated by organized labour. Child labour and women's hours legislation were promoted by reformers and supported to some extent by organized labour because of the competitive threat posed by women and children. In addition, various health and safety laws were established and enforced by state industrial commissions (Brandeis, 1935). One major risk, industrial,accidents, was covered by a species of state-level regulatory policy.. Workmen's compensation was passed in 42 of the 48 states between 1911 and 1921 and required businesses to insure, not necessarily through the state, their workers against industrial accidents. Moreover, many things were lacking from workmen's compensation that one would expect in Social insurance: elements of , . public spending and national controls or incentives (Asher, 1971). In the ';■.'■ 1910s, state-level movements for health and unemployment insurance and old age pensions often made it to the study-commission stage of the state politics, but foundered after that (Nelson, 1969; Brandeis, 1935; Starr, 1982). Although health insurance was removed from the political agenda in the 1910s, in the 1920s the movement for means-tested old age pensions made advances near the end of the decade. Before Hoover was sent from office, Instates had passed compulsorv old age pensions. t i into -ui n' . ■---••---•..........- »^^w.*^-*^*,^*«»*.*.»^,^^.,,.-,!-,* In early 1932, the first unemployment compensation programme was passed. ..........."'"'"..... .......... -■■. The tariff system lost its pre-eminence in generating revenue. In / 1913, the assumption of national political power by the Democrats, with AMERICAN POLIpY DÍCTlMÍ$fVlftj&?S 30 J their southern and western bases of Support; le$ tp flie estífbííShíTienf: °f individual and corporate income taxes. Tnp Individual ittcöttie tftJí tapped the income of the rich, for the vast majority öf |jeopie inákitjg less than $4000 per year were exempted. The tax ý/álä bpöSted by the ticeá to pay for the war and by continued Dehibcratíc rillfe. Both corporation and individual income taxes were made much suffer and more progressive with the individual income tax rétäihjhg its ptygs basis. Only about 13 per cent of the labour force filed return's in f 92Q (Witte, 1985» chs, 4 and 5). The rise of the Republicans in th'e J 920s pUt the Weakening of income taxes at the top of the political agenda» ä,ňii the Treasury Department of Andrew Mellon claimed that lowered ihqpttie taxes would promote investment* a forerunner of so-cajjed sUppiy^side economics (Stein, 1969; ch. 1). Despite tax puts, by 1929 á combination of corporate and individual income taxes was providing the bulk pf national government revenue. In comparison; the tariff systeiti constituted less than 16 per cent of federal revenues (US Cenäus; 1975; p. 1102). Yet tariff protection continued to be thč Jtey economic policy. The system was""still" controlled congressional!^ tnainjy by the Republican party. The ascension of the Democratic party tp national power lowered the levels of protection somewhat, tjút, 9s Já 1894, it did not undermine the basic policy. Even these minor changes 'Were reversed in 1922 by the Republican Fordney-McCumber Tariff Art which was designed to defend established industries as wfell aS protect the wartime infant industries, stiph as chemicals and niéfalluřgý^nd to appease agricultural^ interests by increasing rates on wheat; Sujety >ýopl and butter; amongst other things; no doubt the influence wa$ largely Symbolic, as the United States was an agricultural exporter (katrter; 19721) 'W- 3)- The last hurrah of tariff prdtection was the 1?3Ó HaHy e^ihpot Tariff Act, an agricultural relief measure which w^s amfri^d. ;fOj please ti(e gfifnUt of industrial interests (Schatschneider, 1963)í Tf)0 iict engendered pn international reaction; trade barriers, were ^tiph eRüfblisliec| elsewhere, The making of tariffs was rernoved from COhj^éSísliíŕiííl cphtrpl tíhly after being eclipsed by the Roosevelt adriiihís^fítip^S jjttore interventionist economic policies. Modern Public Policies and the ^etofjrft 0f t|té Nineteenth Ctjhtiiry ''' For any number of reasons, one hiight jijäp expected the rise of a coherent, nationalized and modern schehjě bf rJyblic policies during the Great Depression and the Secjaíld Wj?ř|íj ',%& T|íeSe; tVýo great international crises coincided with the ppliticiü dbiiilrtatlce öf ft p'ŕepläem Roosevelt, and a political party, thé DénlOÔratói that had become -~.,«,-. nivicíMiň. J\MJ THEDA SKOCPOL committed to these goals..The party allied itself with a rising labour movement which threw its support behind social spending. State-building accelerated. Accordingly, the administration attempted to put under the control of the national executive social spending, taxation, economic and employment policies. By the end of the 1930s, these initiatives ended, temporarily, America's status as a laggard in interventionist public policies. By the end of the 1940s, the bid to create an almost social democratic schéme of public policies had failed. Instead, a hybrid system took hold. It included some innovations, such as old age and survivors' insurance, a revamped income taxation system, and greater control by the executive branch over macroeconomic policymaking. However, these modern initiatives became enmeshed in a /framework of policies similar to the nineteenth-century system, a system /mainly at the discretion of congressional 'actors."Like that system, it i included similarly selectivist social spending policies, .a distributive, ; quasi-public employment policy, this time relying on military contracting, \ and an overburdened taxation system. Innovations in post-war public policies have followed the lines established immediately after the war. US public policies during depression and war: an attempt to construct modern public policies Roosevelt took action on many policy fronts when he assumed office in 1933. But it was not until the end of 1934 that national committees and administrative bodies started to plan sweeping changes in national public policies. Such planning began with the Committee on Economic Security, a cabinet-level group which drafted the bill that became the 1935 Social Security Act, the centrepiece of the so-called Second New Deal. Planning was continued by the Social Security Board, the administrative body in control of the national aspects of the act, and the National Resources Planning Board, part of the (1939) Executive Office of the President. These organizations proposed a nationalized system of social msujrancej supported both by payroll taxes and strqngh/,progressiye and broad-based .income .taxes,, nationally contrplied employment relying on direct.employment.and public wprks, and a left wing.Keynesianism which envisaged macroeconomic deficit spending combined with an industrial policy.5 Although gains were made, nationalized and comprehensive social insurance policies were not enacted. The Social Security Act created only one national social insurance programme, old age insurance, which ' had "its" "ó\ýn'payroll tax, or social" security contribution." Even this programme, as a result of congressional changes in the bill, excluded blacks by excluding agricultural and d.o.inestic workers. The greater part £ of the 1935 Act was devoted to national incentives for the states to AMERICAN POLICY DISTlřlutrVfcNESS 303 legislate their own social spending programmes. For one thing, it provided taxation incentiyes for states to create a; second social insurance programme, against unemployment. All slates had programmes by 1938« For another, the Act provided grants-in-aid fot stages to establish old age assistance programmes, which many states had, already passed, and fór mothers' pensions, whose new name became flici to dependent children. Because of the wide variety of standards, these state-level programmes were regarded as mere experiments by the New Deal planners who wanted them to be superseded by national ones and to be augmented by national health and sickness insurance. In 1939, administration forces passed important amendments to the Social Security Act, adding benefits for the survivors of qualifying wprkers, but the programme was not safe until the amendments of 1950. Unlike Britain, which completed a national system of social insurance soon after the war, the United States entered the 1950s with only ohe national programme. The United States also gained one national spending programme that fitted neither the plans qf the N, ew Dealers nor cross-national trends in social insurance programmes. B^; tile fetid of the War, a comprehensive system .ofyeterans'. benefits was Jna^cteiiT^ of unemployment compensation, ecjucatiqhiil beriefits, free medical care, and incentives to help able-bodied vetéfäriä to'purchase homes. This group of benefits came in addition lb (lie pries granted to disabled veterans who automatically benefited frpflj the categorical legislation enacted after previous (Wars. Fac^ With a choice between long-term spending policies for all American^ ánd| ephetneral spending policies for veterans, Congress did hot hesitate i As a result, social spending programmes were incomplete, for the risk of illness was left uncovered, and ran along two tracks. Old age and survivors' insurance was separated programmatlcally and fiscally from the other programmes. In this system, which pre-pmpted the name social security, national controls Were combined with national payroll taxation and bureaucratic distribution with minimal surveillance of the recipient population. In the other system, which became known as welfare, benefits and eligibility were controlled by the states which applied means tests and "ä" local' system of surveillance. The planners imagined these programmes would disappear with the growth of social insurance pud the assurance of full employment. Neither happened. Employment policies Svere the strongest of all national New Deal programmes. The American approach to fighting the effects; of die Peprcssion was the provision of public employment. In 1935 the administration called for the creation of thgjJSiorks jfrogfess^dwnisH^li^ programme, Congress.^^^ sponsolre^p^ects,' and the" WPA decided which one$ to fund and then ran tKemTTHfs^äs a departure imm^r^^ ^^x^tnVpm^mm^ \ 304 EDWIN AMENTA AND THEDA SKOCPOL the creation of jobs was the explicit goal and the executive branch exerted control over the system. In 1939, when the programme was formally inslitutionalized under executive reorganization, the WPA (renamed the Work Projects Administration) and other public employment programmes employed more than three million people and accounted for about 20 per cent of national government expenditures. When, the war brought temporary full employment and when the 1942 elections brought a strongly conservative coalition into Congress, however, these programmes died. Unlike in Sweden, which also fought the Depression with employment strategies, the main American antidepression device did not oudive the war. Economic policy was closely related to employment policy. Here, too, interventionist solutions were attempted and then abandoned, The Roosevelt administration followed the lead of Britain in abandoning the gold standard, and the administration attempted intrusive recovery policies, notably the quasi-corporatism of the National Recovery Administration which allowed the capitalists of industries to organize themselves to fix production levels and, for a while, prices. When that scheme mainly failed and was ruled unconstitutional in 1935, the administration began to emphasize the promotion of competition and the fight against monopoly, a fight which included the guarantees of labour organization enshrined in the 1935 National Labour Relations Act (Hawley, 1966). By 1938, after the start of Roosevelt's own recession, the administration added a peculiar Keynesian logic to its initiatives. The American version of Keynesianism was not a hands-off manipulation of aggregate spending; it called for redistribution^ the creation of large social spending policies, and direct intervention in what was considered a permanently stagnant economy. The administration and its followers had to settle for purposely running deficits. Deficits had characterized earlier Roosevelt policy, but after 1938 the administration stopped trying to balance the budget and, in any case, the war made such a task impossible (May, 1981; Stein, 1969). Immediately after the war, an attempt was made to legislate the principle of deficit spending to achieve full employment, but this unworkable policy was deleted by Congress in its passage of the weak Employment Act of 1946 (Bailey, 1950). Because of failures in social spending policies and the destruction of public employment policies, there were no programmatic means to implement an interventionist Keynesian policy. National taxation initiatives had somewhat greater long-term success than did most New Deal public policies. The planners hoped to break the national dependence on regressive excise taxes, which had funded the early New Deal, with more progressive measures. Later New Deal taxation policies included innovative business taxes, which were intended AMERICAN POLICY DlSf iNpf ^jStÉfilS 305 in part to promote competition. These tyf.$ ditj typt tJjžftt' the tnain burden of economic poHcy^nlakinl, hbtyeyefy ftjjf h^d ttipře symbolic than fiscal or poliev significance (Leff, if $4). Ttlö breakthroughs came in the shadow Of war, during 194Í ^ind líjfrl fHf Íft#VlfM Ititpme tax was transformed from a tax on upper inebfneis tá § |tä$ ph älíttpSt everyone and became more progressive' and pfa^üJrtiVf? of ťgVehUe^ Rational revenues jumped from 7.4 per cent of CpP iíi'Í&Í9 to 18*7 per cent in 1946 (US Council of Economic Advisory' \98^ jip, 203, 288). These gains were made secure during the early 1950s!, íjflpresšiye ás they Were, the taxation increases were not aš coŕnpjét£ 4j? thčy flight have been for there was a failure of taxation explicitly fpj4 BPciaJ spending. Social security contributions were not pnly rkjť Jtičřeí»Špd| Cpngress rejected scheduled increases legislated before tfif Witf. State^evel taxation systems innovated during the 1930s and f 940s Jitriiting the process of fiscal centralization offen promoted by depression sind War. Tlie post-mqr period: the return of ninelééiitlircetitury policies but without party control ditd aij-lilpthtl The innovations of the New Deal aiid jtjie Second World War were ultimately incorporated into a policy fŕartipVýorlc Which resembles that of the nineteenth century. Congress' has regained the control over the details of policies, but without the cpŕŕuprioíji apd the party control of the nineteenth century. The one national spela] Insurance programme, for the retired, has becPme part of a selectivlsi sociál spending scheme that does not veer too far from the groups cpyei'ec) by Civil War pensions. Military spending, like the earlier use tit1 t^p rational bureaucracy, has been used as an inefficient, b^pkdpot* public employment policy. Taxation policy, forged during war, lias becpine btjrdehed with economic and distributive goals. One difference js t^ftt the ftarional executive gained more control over econpmic policies. Like tariff protection, however, these policies are mácŕpeconpmjcf ťejylpg oh few direct controls, and attempt, however unsuccessfully, tp JilCťge the Interests of industrial capital and labpur, As for spcial spending policy, veterans of the Second World War and retired veterans of wage-earning employment and their survivors have become relatively advantaged. Numerous legislated increases in coverage ( and benefits have created a sbrt of welfare stafö for tile qualified aged - ; contrary to the stereotyped view of American social policy. The augmentation of old age and survivors' insurance has been prompted, usually during election years, by Democratic congresses throughout the post-war period (Derthick, 1979). New risks were insured. The insurance of permanent and total disability was introduced in 1956, and the Democratic administration of President Lyndon Johnson (1964-9) Jl/0 EDWIN AMENTA AND THEDA SKOCPOL oversaw the adoption in 1965 of Medicare, Social insurance for the hospitalization costs and doctors' fees of the elderly. Perhaps more important, coverage for old age and survivors' insurance became almost universal and the benefits were increased, especially from the late 1960s to 1972. As a result, there was a rise in the replacement rate, the degree to which benefits allow continuity in earnings, to levels not as high as in Sweden and Germany but higher than those in Canada and the UK (Myles, 1988). These public insurance programmes have been augmented by many private benefits in pensions and insurance. These private programmes chiefly have covered the white-collar and unionized work force and are under the control of large corporations. This postwar private welfare state now accounts for most consumer spending on health and about a quarter of all welfare spending (Stevens, 1988). The separation between the programmes known as social security and those known as welfare has widened. Welfare or means-tested programmes have made gains, but have not fared as well as the insurance programmes and have been damaged by the Reagan administration. Old age pensions, the state-level, means-tested prograrflme, were, as expected, eventually eclipsed by old age insurance. The renamed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the means-tested American answer to universal family allowances, .however, continued to grow to much greater levels than the programme executives of social security initially expected. Innovations came in the wake of Johnson's War on Poverty and the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s (Haveman, 1977). One of these was Medicaid; the less generous part of the American answer to national health insurance. Like AFDC, Medicaid is a national subsidy programme to states fqr means-tested assistance, but for medical care. In addition, spending for AFDC exploded in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These programmes for poor people have had narrow political support and they were the main victims of the Reagan administration's attack on social welfare policy (Schwarz, 1983). The inadequacy of these programmes largely accounts for America's poor social spending performance. Post-war economic policy has been concerned with the manipulation of aggregate spending and taxing, relying on fiscal stimulation rather than classical liberalism. There has been an American comparative advantage in deficit spending. American fiscal policies have tended to be expansionary, with relatively large deficits being run during the late 1960s and the 1980s. These policies have been run chiefly by presidents, with the assistance of the Council of Economic Advisors, a body created I in 1946. Fiscal policy has amounted to a limited type of Keynesianism. One technique, if taking no action can be called technique, IľáTbeenTrľe'' use of sb-čalled automatic stabilisers: taxes have not been.raised, during recessions';''while spending has increase^...because-of. the-.increased AMERICAN POLICY piSTÍN^|VfeWÉäS 307 numbers of people who qualify fqr prográmftioš ŠUch fä utíeinployment insurance. Ä second form has been tjie stimülpvb to qiit bť tjte increase in military spending not covered bý ne^ taxes. PpStttyftŕ ppiriQCfiitic administrations have proposed taje ciifS $ ihéŕejíse consumption. Similarly, the Reagan administration h^Š ojjijjíičd that its; so-called supply-side tax cuts, motivated at le^st partly % ft rpns^rWJV^ dislike of progressive income taxes, were designed tb ^tírfiúiírte ]tf$ economy (Stein, 1984). Both Democratic and Rjzpühiiti^ aqtfii^Střftdorts have increased military spending withqüt tax i|ij:^|}$&, Other types of Keynesianism^ tinders^d ^ the manipulation of aggregate spending, have been pojíticalíý íhlivpťkablo. First, it has been impossible to increase social spentjirjg stŕiujiv foť the stimulation of the economy. Second, it has been impossible tb ptířSUe restrictive Keynesianism on the British model in whiclj tax incí'faseš äfe adopted solely to slow inflation. The one-sidedness of the pölföy is due tp the difficulties in forming a political coalition to Increase Spola] spending or to raise taxes. Cutting taxes has proved less than flexible^ Congress has frequently used the occasion of an administratiori^špohsqťed tax bill to add many provisions of its own. To fight inflation, for recent presideiltfy has meant to provoke/ recessions, which at oritj slow dgniarid äíid reduce labour militancy. 5 Although the Federal Reserve Boardj which influences interest rates and the supply of money, is nominally mdepeiitlent, it hás been susceptible to presidential pressure. As a result, m&ft$jfed recessions have been instigated by Republicans and pembcrat^ alijíé '•* by Republicans in 1969 and in 1981, both at the beginning, of presidential terms, and by Democratic President Qarter in 1979, oddly, hear the end of his one term in office. The Federal Reserve fijoard has pursued nothing approaching a monetarist policy iri which the money supply follows automatic decision rules relating to ecohotitjp gfotyth. Favourable as the American performance oh inflation has beeii, it IiaS not been due to an independent bureaucratic guardian of pripe! ^ability, as in flic German case. Partly for this reason, the inflation $$ p,f Qisrftjftriy remained low during the recessionary 1974-84 pjeriod, ivi^le $8 lUÍtotibU rate of the United States approached the OEpD average (Schmidt, en, 3 this volume; OECD, 1984). So far as the processes of wage,deterniih|i:|pti h&Y0 böefl ptihpeWed, the post-war United States has main'jy folibý^d jits' jiístořjíiítl pftth ^ With little direct State controlj but with1 ädmfoteÜj'finVß Jtjflueiflpe qveť the process. Collective bargaining was sänetí^heq Íri 193^" by Ütß fiö-ctdled Wagner Act, was.put intp..actioh.durihg,íI|e..feai'i jjJEfíĽlffi! PÁfldílU6?) thereafter. Wage.and price..cOntrojs,,JYer^ J^|f|4^i3rtt-|ílplfi>HÍ^)Kftt Btld were experimented withonly'bň^^aň^ŕ^^i^^g^|áť|ý, lU^Ös. In m^pbšf^ärpenbdnepšlanon'hä^ filvifjiirablV to „„» * í*e 'ate ]930s> beginning with the Í 947 Taft-Hartley Act ňvlHňcd some of labour's advantages at the bargaining table. ^Unsurprisingly, tnc svstem nad produced relatively high levels of industrial conflict (Korpi and Shalev, 1980). In recent years, however, labour's bargaining power has been undercut by induced recessions and by Republican administrations, diminishing labour's militancy. In addition to Keynesianism, there has existed a sort of direct employment policy only partly connected to economic conditions and the rhetoric of employment. The provision of jobs through military contracts has been the counterpart to the provision of federal jobs in the nineteenth century. Since the Second World War, the United States has spent more than any OECD country on the military, with little change in the rankings since 1950 (Keman, 1982). Military 'investment', a category dominated by weaponry, has constituted about half the military budget in any given year, and more than half during the 1979-85 build-up, and the vast majority of weaponry is domestically produced. The policy has lent itself to congressional log-rolling; military appropriations bills often have included expenditures throughout many areas of the country (Russett, 1970). This is not to say that American international policy has been motivated by domestic concerns over unemployment. It is not to say that the economy requires such spending or that contracting for weapons is an efficient employment strategy. All the same, specific sectors of the economy, and their workers, have been underwritten, and these purchases have been probably somewhat greater than they otherwise would have been. The number of workers making weapons rose to 2.8 million during the Vietnam War. In 1977, before die recent build-up, the number had dropped only to approximately 2 million or about 2 per cent of the labour force, and had risen in 1986 to 3.4 million (Griffin, 1984; Nem York Times, 1987). Military employment and aggregate demand stimulation has been no substitute for a flexible Keynesianism, a targeted public employment system and labour-market interventions. However, the policies probably have kept American unemployment lower than otherwise might be expected. Specifically, these policies have perhaps kept unemployment from rising to relatively high levels during worldwide declines in economic growth. In the 1950s, a period of relatively low economic activity for the Western world, the American average unemployment rate approximated the average of 18 OECD countries. In the 1960s, a period of higher growth, the American unemployment rate was almost twice as high as the average of the other OECD countries. Similarly, from 1974 to the middle of the 1980s, the US rate of unemployment has risen, but has become closer to the average of the long-standing OECD nations and is, not, in the late 1980s, amongst the countries with the highest unemployment, such as Britain (OECD, 1984). AMERICAN POLICY DISTlI^fyfejSíEgS 309 Of all major public policies, the íaté t#e|ii|i|éfli*c0i}t*ify American taxation system most closely resembles its rfj^ttřltuth^^filíy Counterpart. In both cases Anjerican taxes \yeré ialt%é$ íjl Wöf fttjiti put to different uses during peacetime. Since Jf^fe ßöppfjo! Wflrld, Wf?r, the \ income tax has become a tool of écohpiftíf; feí)íif!y ŕ(Pí) í) distributive benefit system. Under the influence óf Kéý|$|}$i čjcjviseŕš» pßiliocrats have promoted the permanent lowering o'f i^ijjtiltt '$#, r^íeS to gaip sbort-term economic benefits, hotsfbly in 190-f wjtlj tjlis sp-Cii(!iet| Kertncdy tax cut. Using a somewhat different 'sppp^sjde' lpgic, the Reagan administratioh has permanently lowered táxeji älsp partly in Oi'der to promote economic growth. Both typps of administrations JiaVC allowed recessions to pass without making aljeriipfS tt> fmgrpeiíttä* revenues. Distributing benefits through thp tax sýSfeth has been achieved through selective forgiveness. 'Tik e'xpfeiiclittif'es' are Ustiajly measured as deviations from the revenues thaf wö^d Jtftve been generated under the so-called structural prpvisions iff, the tpj Congress has attached tax forgiveness provisions especially tp apnunístťfltipft bills that modified the structure of tax codes for řeasořis bf ecPrlpniic policy. This modern congressional patronage has been the cost of securing programmatic changes in schedules. From 1970 tp 1981 there have been 105 modifications in the direction of increasing Spph provisions and only 43 modifications decreasing them (Witte» 198lj cjt, 12). The most generous dispensations tinder the individual iricoitie t$x have been deductions for mortgage interest payments for horne Ownfcrs. Tax expenditures grew from 4.4 per cent of GNP in 1967 to $,4 f»éf cent in 1982. Strong presidential lobbying for tlie 'revenuerňéutraí111986 Tax Reform Act and the spectre of enormous deficits eliminated Sbine of these expenditures. Many remained, however, and congj-essioiifll leaders devised numerous exceptions to the reforms. In short, patrpnage, meaning divisibility jti benefits and the use of discretion, has run. diroughdut American Sticjal Spending, employment and taxation policies in the post-wíjř pe'Hp^'ítt ih\s >Vay the post-war policies resemble those of the nmeteettth Sfepttlry. It perhaps seems obvious that patronage has characterized gbViefílJftígftt contracts for military procurement and constructipn. SitnjJ4jrly jtfoe tprtp tai{ expenditures implies that small constituencies have bjBéíl tjíe beííejíefôP68' But patronage has also been evident to sbirie exteijt }il if$ hipst ptagra^Miatlí} of spending policies, old age and sürytyfij]^ it^|}ra|fce, For that programme, the timing of increases in oeneíjjtá pS ffeq^er|tly corresponded to elecnoris (Derthicki 1979).<' CL/WIIN «lUtJNlft AINU lrtJLlJA SK.UCťUL. Explaining the Distinctiveness of American Public Policies Not only do people have their own ideas of what constitutes American exceptionalism in public policy. They also tend to have stereotyped views of why American exceptionalism exists. Sometimes these arguments are based on political or social characteristics deemed to be uniquely American. The most helpful of recent explanations of differences in post-war public policies focus on class struggles. Yet this perspective tends to shunt.American politics into á residual category: America is a plače where the political strength of labour has been decidedly inferior to the strength of capital. The limits of the class struggle approach The features of the social democratic model, the dominant political class struggle perspective, are well known (see Shalev, 1983). The model holds that the earlier and more extensively industrial workers become organized in centralized unions and in social democratic parties, and the more frequently that these parties hold office, the sooner and more extensive the development of the welfare state. How American conditions correspond to the model is also well known. American labour organization has been minimal compared to most capitalist democracies, with divisions between craft and industrial workers. The typical indicators of the strength of organized labour give the United States the lowest score on centralization and a low score on union density, In addition, America has had no real socialist party. In cross-national research, the United States typically scores zero on the number of years ruled by a social democratic party. For the American case, the implications of the model are generally negative: this gap in American political organization has made strong public policies impossible. The only positive statements to be made are counterfactual. Undoubtedly, the argument is true as far as it goes. It does not go far, however, in answering the questions posed by this chapter. It cannot explain the trajectory of US public policies. Policies comparatively favourable to workers and to the disadvantaged were achieved in the late nineteenth century and in the 1930s. Yet the United States would score low on social democratic strength in both periods. 7 The early rise of education artd Civil War pensions owed little to "' ; organized labour movements and lesss to social democratic parties. This ! failure to. explain initial developments is! not.limited to the United States. I) The__prigins of European social insurance programmes have been attributed to conservative monarchs and liberal politicians (Flora and £x|Alber, 1981). More important, in its standard form, the model cannot AMERICAN ťQLICY D^NCTfYWPSS JI 1 explain why a supposedly bourgeois polity hia^e jjii abortive bid in the 1930s to establish public policies of a social j}ej|tpßra|ic Mr*ď Similarly, even though the model works best hi thtí^jjtTí^f fjöHpcf,, it c|pes not explain well the characteristics of postwar Ät^ipiih pMplic policies. ..The model would expect strict market Íib'Í^i|^( {bť }l}Stance( rather than demand stimulus as an economic Ppljiy: JylbřpPVÉfj tfíC thodel cannot explain why American provision for th^ řpttfed ÍS hi ^píliti Wttys more favourable than such pŕpyišipn in1 wítHjty *vhéřq a social democratic party has frequently held offlte,. F|if(nerihöre, the model cannot explain the character of the íhňoVátítjflS tjf the Í9óQš during which many programmes were tailpred srieCifjtSäjly tp appeal tö blacks. A major shortcoming of the rhpdel' is it$ (issMthptiort that state capacities in the realm of public policies; are Well developed. According to the logic of the model, once a social deificfcf^jip päfty gäiris power it has few obstacles in the way of creating a cp^ptehčttsive set of public policies. It is implicit that the Instruments of tiie State are developed well enough'to implement the social policies' oj ä transnational consensus amongst socialists. In the American case, Hoover, state capacities have been underdeveloped. Such capacities have Híld tú be ptiilt, else pônčTés wé7e^ut1ueTwTm"*tEé"ínadequate meáris at hand. Additionally, in its standard forrrij the model also plays dpwit tile fact that a labour movement can be, and Occasionally lias been* politically strong even in the absence of á social democratic pářtý. Airtej^anJabf^ aUied_iKe^ since tnTTRrSOs, „and when these parties haya ^ctiieved power legislation favourable to workers, spmetimes bordering pfl the social democratic, can be passed. Generally speaking, jifte mpclel plays down the role of strategy within the labour movement, Labbi}f thovementS make different choices at different times, the phsh .fpi- Social policy improvements being only one possible strategy. In the American Case, organized labour has often been onjy in f^J^cV^O}^^6{j^^^t^^i..p^üC policy innovanoňšTna^pmetimes. labou^ fias pppcjajfea them, A second pplitical class-struggle hypothesis qpipfs that deficiencies in American public policies have beeh due tö \\\§ existence of a unified right-wing political party (Castles, 1982). Var|0tiÉi cjitegbries öf ppst-War social spending have been shown to be sigh)f}jč$p|:jy IpW'eť |tl p|áce$ where the right-wing parties have controlled the jjJMiTíjriĚiit, In tl$ United States, the right-wing party is the Republican j^jrtyj W$}\ has alternated in office with the centrist Democrats. This liile1 fif ^jafífítlblrt ílítš ĚfOtlie explanatory advantages. It does not bofd|pr| 0 HiWHc3 ffoítl Other countries whose public policies are similarly šty^i jy^álíeS 8ßh|i3 of the fact that, the., twentieth-century I^jjubljc^iiib social spending policy..ihn,,Qya|ÍQns ^^^mM^mmW^f'mMW^ l^s^s^^^p^^onXoJhemc^me táx. Ij: fa felpííj( in ^lajoihg When waves of reform are possible; ÖJfiJäJjßrjBS, and innovations of the 1930s and 1960s came wheajJig^Repjiblican party was^ not in power. And it underscores the importance of understanding'hisÄnčafry wKether and how the major constituents of the political right coalesced around political parties and how early decisions about trade and economic development influence the formation of the party system. Like the social democratic model, however, the right wing parties model has difficulty in explaining many of the specifics in the historical pattern and character of American public policies. It not only cannot account for the nineteenth-century policy developments; it is contradicted by the fact that injhe nineteenth, century Republicans initiated spending policies,, including Qyi!..W50J?^Í°.P?^S.4-eí^fi8tifi5' Similarly,' because" the argument is negative, it has trouble in explaining the character of public policies. To explain the trajectory and characteristics of American public policies, one needs to incorporate the insights of political class-struggle approach into a wider view of political parties, as well as to pay greater attention to other political institutions and processes. A wider approach To explain the two aspects of distinctiveness in American public policies is to answer a number of smaller questions. As far as the historical pattern of public policies is concerned, first, one must explain the rise of the public, policies of the late nineteenth century. Why did they occur when they did? Second, why was this system undermined to some extent in the early twentieth century and tb a greater extent during the 1930s? Third, one must account for the attempt and the failure of the new approach of the 1930s and the re-emergence of policies reminiscent of .the late nineteenth century. So far as the characteristics of public policies are concerned, one must first explain why the policies of the nineteenth century took the forms that they did. Notable here is the distributive or patronage nature of policies. Second, one should account for the often racial and gender bases of policies. Third, one needs to explain why certain policies of the late twentieth century differ from their counterparts in the late nineteenth century. j j Our framework emphasizes tjhie_jnediatíng; effect_o_f .state political i; instijujions. These institutions prédisposed~Ämenčaň public policies to form certain patterns. American political institutions were characterized early on by a strong separation of powers, a lack of state executive bureaucracies, and widespread mánhood-suffrage. 'TT^é'^čTiaTacteristics combined to lead„to the earlv.provision oTnatronage-hasRii benefits geared to white men. The district representation system of Congressalso encouraged, and continues to encourage, patronage policies. In addition, state institutions influenced the forms of mobilization of political groups and their strategies, as well as the rrföbiliz^ftiil f)f $ titer political grotjpä and the form and nature of the party system* Next, tljejiiojdjnncgr^r^ ppMmÍM^ í system, ..Political parties "could p^erc'drnö t{Í£Se''bťe(Íl$ppsitlans; ,a sustained .period.ofrule(^^bjititóg^^r^ ibfeotl results in the building of new state^capjS^ flf ^W^oJjßje|( At first, politicaf parties were^Örieoted moře, towards Btóslllge fflatLiOfllk&tlXf programmes and became more prqgíainmlitip pvjr dme» Atta sustained party'rule occurred only rarely in Áirjerici' Júl t|$ Säftte, the rilythíiiS of party politics account fdr much of the chaň|í* Iff tjiiplit: fjaiÍĎÍes, including the bid to create a social democratic scheme of policie lil ü\f) 1930s flrtd the innovations of the 19603* An urt>áň peWc;örfitic p0ftlitiOn, an American functional approximation to a šOOtňl derriöCratic party, came into power in the 1930s. This coalition áccptlhlid for programmatic policy breakthroughs. The coalition failed $ b£ S^Staittpd, however, and its failure ensured that natipnaj policies Wöljlfl be replaced mainly by patronage ones; indiyjdual cortgŕešsnieii ra^jier. than a programmatic faptipn of a party took charge of jpolicytiüBf^titgrf This coalition briefly rose to power again in the 1960s with šinujat effects. Additionally, the extensiveness and p^fefttö of crises have had an impact on public policies. The Američan experience of geopolitical crises differed substantially from most other countries* The ŕnost severe warm US history came in the middle of the qiíietôénthcehtury, This created additional pressure for early public sociál benefits, pressure that was transformed into pohcyr^emocraup in$ti^fjpns, Otherwise, geopolitical crises were not as severe in the United States, as they Were in most large Western nations and had the effect óf reinforcing- previous policies. Yet the US geopolitical trajectory brought vybfld political and economic hegemony. This situation has helped j:b return; Congress to a position of dominance on domestic pqliciéš generally, but has given the executive an extra degree of freedom ill the ruHnjng of aggregate economic policies. Although for ease of prespntátiph the following sections discuss individually the state, parties, and crises, the interaction of these theoretical components is important. State Political Jtaslifytiojtis it ' " ' It has been frequently noted thai Américái bjg)|rl with no Strong and centralized bureaucracy. Executive; .ip^tu^jiaj^aja^ea^ The underdevelopment of the American bureaubMoOptfe Jjieaht that State capacities in specific public policy areas pM\a jié relatively ttteftgre. When the autonomy of die státó' in tf$ hp^C^JWW^ Pf' H^ral democracies is discussed, scholars pojrii: ff? )f|iÖ contributions pf bureaucrats and civil servants in the creation or reworking of public policies. Unsurprisingly, these actors were less prevalent in America than elsewhere. The processes of state-building relied to some extent on crises such as war and depression to bring power to the national state. State-building also relied on the. success of reform movements, such as Progressivism, to forge new areas of bureaucratic authority. These movements were only modestly successful, and frequently prospective state-builders wanted first to overturn previous developments in public policies, including the Civil War pension system, which combined patronage and corruption. However, where state capacities were created, in which particular policy areas, often influenced the later development of public policies. The chequered growth of executive state capacities across policy areas and across levels of government had a strong impact on the pattern of American public policies. Nevertheless, it was not so much the weakness of the state as the overall character of political institutions that influenced public policymaking. These political institutions are part of the state as it is usually defined: as a set of organizations that extract resources and extend coercive control and political authority over territories and their inhabitants. State political institutions can be more or less democratic, including or not including representative institutions with varying degrees of suffrage. Moreover, these political institutions can be structured in different ways, with powers and functions focused or separated. Representation, voting rights and public policies A second key concerned the history of representative democracy and voting rights. America was a leader in grantineLsuffrage on a wide basis, and surrrage mattered. .Electoral results were not merely symbolic for they decided who would man the many political offices. White male suffrage was secured by the 1830s. Yet the winning of the vote for other groups was more difficult. Black men gained the franchise in the post-Civil War reforms of the radical Republicans, but enfranchisement soon led to disenfranchisement in the South, where most blacks resided. The losing of the vote began at the end of Reconstruction (1865-76) and was largely completed by the beginning of the twentieth century (Kousser, 1974). It was not until the 1960s that the civil rights movement helped to secure voting rights for southern blacks (Morris, 1984). Women also mobilized, for the suffrage in the nineteenth, century. Although this movement was not completely successful until 1919, its sucpess was . permanent. The early adoption of the vote for white males made'it more likely that benefits for lower classes would be publicly provided. As has been shown AMERICAN POLICY piSTlhifS^yfe^jsS^ 315 in cross-natiopal research, the granting of tHé 'ft\i% JjehJraHy Jea^S tt) the extension öf public benefits (Schneider, Í98ÍJ pJp^'jUid Á|pjj\ 1081)» But the democratization of the eléclqrate iiitj \jj.$. prbjcle'etl sh/t0ötjily, and the mobilization of groups also varjed - w|th' (löjis^flUöttöe! fpr public policies. Ejrh^r^Í£poh^ women. Civil War pensions fpřwdrrjen Vj3ŕe/}#$ jfeheřous 3nid had more restrictions, including restrictiqnS not qfth/ fpjr w4qWS blít for Women who served in wartime non-^cqmbat rples( Silttflarly, blacks Were excluded from most ř-ípw Deal sociál ppllclížs. Both pf these groups, unlike white males or workers, fought for m$ suffrage ää members of distinctive groups, and public policies r£fl|žfi{$4 tjtis ftiCt» Ťkč political empowerment of women resulted In éaŕjý j^e$tí^tp-ueílttiry spending programmes for women which were staffejj py w p;h^em l(i Úié tyjjlte of the civil rights movement, the public policy IfiHuyfttitihs pf \\\$ JphhSOn regime explicitly appealed to blaclfs;/£negp f)'t)(|pipS0tb partly designed to bring this group into the Democratic éjjajjt^jŕjij fold. Two aspects of American electoral m$tifytjöhs Influenced the shape of the party system. First, technical eharacteil^tjcs. ff represöptatlon helped to ensure that only two major g^rtie^jejB^g^d^ 'ýVjíme^-take-all electoral systems, such as mat for Congress; discpiiirago third patties; the Electoral College, the means by which presidents fire elected, has frequently led third parties to ally with larger parties in prdef' tö Influence the outcome (McCormick, 1986, ch. 4). As ä result, thirtj parties h»Ve been rare, and successful ones rarer. Second, the fádt ijlat the democratization,,,of politics mainly preceded the^ deyélppŕhfcjjjt.pf national'Bureaucratic infflti^ons^affectéd'*ffi'e'-r^e'of'^rty^ey^tÉtn/'anď. through it public policies. For these two processes fjartly determined whether political parties were geared toward providing patronage, granting divisible and discretionary benefits to constituencies, or toward programmes appealing to established groups with collective goods, \yhere democracy appeared much sooner than bureaucracy, ás it did Íri the United States and Italy, political partijes were disposed towards pätťptiage policies. In places such as Germany, the opposite occurred arid pa^i^S appealed to the electorate with collective programmes (Shefter, 1977)* In the American case, thjj decentralization of government ensured, that these patronage-oriented parties w^o^'b;e*^otgánrZťd'ŕlocal^') With á network"of 'local' parties coalescingto^á^côntr^r'ôFliKe "rii£(ny gpYeriirrients and to use them to distribute benefits and keep up the strength pf the párty organization. The separation offtmeU A third key initial characteristic of these s^ťé pt$t|i#l ijlStltlLttions Was the separation of powers in governhienff MMsia^ e^rdsje^gj^piihjQri^to make.govern^e^|^ pf these institutions dwarfed Úie^^^^^i£J^^taucr^ies, national or subnational (see, for example, Huntington, 2). American legislatures are based on geographic units of representation; under this system the representative usually must reside in the district. Legislatures have mattered not only on the national level, but also in the subnational governments which have overlapped with the national government in their functions and hence have competed with the national government for power. Although American courts were not initially granted judicial review, the power to overturn laws, the Supreme Court appropriated this power and has used it and other powers, as have lower courts, in influencing public policy, especially in the realm of labour law. The struggle to enact modern public policies can beseen pardy as bids by, the executive to create central buŕeä^atjE^u'tJiorhy^ähd to "wŕésVauthority from the national and state legislatures, as well asTromthe courts-with these other governmental actors struggling for power amongst themselves. The nature of American legislative institutions and their strength relative to the executive and its bureaucracies promoted divisible and discretionary benefits in policies. To the extent that legislatures, with /their geograpJhjcal_sy^stem of representation, made policies, these policies ; took onáaistributiveOT^attohage^character rather than a programmatic ■:one. Representatives represent their lo£.aljnjterests...Only the strongest ' system of political parties can keep coalitions of individual legislators from distributing benefits amongst their constituents. Only the dominance of a party with strong programmatic tendencies, a requirement not often met in American history, has been able to induce such a system to provide the collective benefits characteristic of modern public policies. Under typical conditions, this legislative system of control helped Civil War pensions and tariffs to take a brokered character, as did many post-Second World War public policies. The set-up of Congress assumed more importance as the nineteenth-century patronage parties declined in the twentieth century. The many overlapping legislative institutions ensured that there would be conflict over the control of public policies. This situation has impeded national control of public policies. And to the extent that nationalization has meant more generous and less intrusive ones, the system of legislative institutions has worked against that. Most state and local policies, from education onward, that have passed with the support of professional groups have been difficult to nationalize. The clearest example of this came in the 1930s. The Social Security Act mainly gave national financial support to state-level programmes (Skocpol and Amenta, 1985). Roosevelt's later attempts to nationalize.social policies conflicted with previous state developments in social spending (Amenta and Skocpol, 1988). Similarly," in that period the national state did not monopolize key sources of taxation. State "level innovations were AMERICAN PpLIÖY OlSTirJOtlVkM^S 317 advanced in both income taxation and síjle^ ^x4tiprj. Th Us the overlapping powers of legislative iqstitutitírísi n^e contributed to the two-track nature of American social spehdihjj tipplfes,, State political institutions and capitalist itíéisMúlkätiOtl The interaction between these processes of1 state institutionnlizntlon and the process of capitalist industrialization also had important implications for public policies. Whereas the processes of democratization, industrialization and bureaucratization were world-wide in their Impact, they differed from country to country in their timing and sequence, In America, the, democratization of the polity came somewhat before the yid.U5|QaHz_ation of the economy^ which had mac|e great stťičTps B^£q2ř Ae^bureaucrtóžation^jOf^ the sjate. The fact that Industrialization prece^ě^^Burerůcratižatiori' no doubt had Influence on the hats of control pf early public policies. To the extent that nineteenth-century industrialization led to problems of national-economic, development, the devising of solutions fell to the national legislature. This is not to say that Congress was likely to splye the problems, but at least it devised policies and wrapped them in the,symbolismjafjgjfOjiphiic.policy, regardless of their effect. The nineteenth-century tariff schedules were nothing like a rationally devised economic policy. Yet protectjoh could not he granted by local governments and hence the national legislature and its political párty managers attempted to fill the void. TJl&prJxcongressional control of economc^ situation. *" More important, the fact that electoral democracy came before industrialization led to a bifircated form pf political mobilization for workers. L^lh^s&iM before the rise of I M^1J^má^mm^W^SímSRÍ^ Because: pf rnajly centres of power, | political, partiej^gxgaju'^dJfi£3Jix t0 control the spoils of office, These parties mobilized the electorate according to the, most salient group boundaries, ethnic and rehgibus ones. The fjse of workers movements > Iecfto a separate form of organizgtioii. A^j^JfibgW^mpyements began,I they organized labour into trade jjt|y[p^!.rA^,er ^gjtj political parties \ (itatmélšonr f9§!').' Jřárdy''Because? of this fpfin of mobilization, these unions have been concerned chiefly with is$M$j pf organization and pay. The. early rise of locally based political parties ensured that capital also "ry would organjz,e.itsglfjn a fragm£rltedjnjylj|i^i"|,, Organized capital would ' !f not be able to control policy outcpňiěs' (Vögel, 1978), In short, the initial structure of state pptirjcal Institutions explains certain tendencies in American public bpjicle$t The early rise of democracy helped to bring the early achiéYJäfrMf pf generoits public (, policies. The overlapping of legislative at$ií)ŕl$ jtheflfif thftt ji^tíonal- ' l; level public policies would have .to |pítí)2g^^|j|i jí8,||ö|?S fe%d aÍ$jVer J 'f* jeve« ui government, ine underdevelopment of bureaucracies, at the centre and the state level, and the idiosyncracies of state building ensured that autonomous policy developments would form an uneven pattern. Early manhood suffrage in the context of a weak bureaucracy assisted political parties devoted to patronage. The dominance of these parties within a certain type of legislature meant that policies would frequendy take a distributive character. If American state political institutions help to explain the early rise and the patronage character of early American public policies, other aspects of the trajectory of public policies and their characteristics are left unexplained. Why was there an attempt to undo the nineteenth-century public policies? Why was there an attempt to create a nationalized scheme of public policies along social democratic lines? Why did congressional policy-making re-emerge in the post-war period? The structure of state political institutions made it seem unlikely that bids to upset the system would succeed. But they succeeded partially, and the attempt and the partial successes require explanation. To help answer these questions, one must address political parties in a wider sense than taken by the social democratic and the right-wing parties models. Our approach includes organizational characteristics of the party system and the nature of party competition, as well as the class and group nature of party support. A Second Look at Political Parties o-- The place to start a discussion of American parties is with their initial organizational characteristics and the nature of inter-party conflict. In the middle of the nineteenth century, parties were locally based and oriented towards patronage benefits rather than collective programmes, although sectional and religious divisions existed. As the twentieth century progressed, parties were weakened as institutions. The organizational basis of parties was attacked throughout the twentieth century by middle-class reformers, who opposed their often illegal methods, and by party leaders concerned with more programmatic issues (Schiesl, 1977). Thus parties simultaneously became more programmatic and weaker. The making of programmatic parties was not without obstacles. What became the right-wing party of the twentieth century, the Republican party, was a state-building and centrist party in the nineteenth century, and the Democratic party performed a similar turnaround. In the nineteenth century, the Democratic! party was the main source of opposition for national spending programmes and public education. The conflicts of the formative years of the parties continued to have influence later, preventing the Democrats from making a complete transition from right to left. The dominance of one party over another has influenced the historical trajectory of American public pojjplejii jšftafe^h.ujjd.lttg and policy-making have often been effected ty' '\ jňMipal jjärty With ft Stir? grasp of political power (Skowronek, 1982, ppj Íů|^9). ífí tile fWehtlpth century, to pass programmatic chajrigeg m^pjlä polio}* ťpdt|lr0jd hot merely thaf the government be "l^^roltóp^'^"'0^<3Gi,fttíC party. Instead they required a Democratic presidehj: kjiid äj C!on.grpj3íj clotíllnflM by Democrats from areas, usually' citieäi. ^ljf||-is ö^aiiizfeij lälwür was strong^ ÄítJffough Üusj:pa}ifo^ niair|Iy during SláQ?» i* tfrought major thangesjri ppSjíc^óIjcíeS,'' The lack of sustained party domjrtáiicé háú jj$4 #íl PVpn greater impact on public policies. In the late nineteenth and 'fare j^piltippi Cčflttiříes, the absence of party dominance has been the jpjtii^ Tjie fragrftétlitátipn of American governmental powers hak íneáht (haf fřpqtleiiitly t(a political party or programmatic political cdalipon xitfä ppöij abje tp CiJtMPJ the government. When one party oJr injajor fypifait WÍthih ft P^t'ty hfls controlled the national government, it ha!? fäétjfl folloWŔfí by 8 longer period in which neither major party ripf prpgf|it|tt1íítíc factions within major parties were able to do so. This J4jpfe" fjf Cptttföl prompted the provision of divisible benefits in both tlie jat£ nihetepftth and late twentieth centuries. American parties and public policies ip tfa ffjrietcettf/i cetitttft In Europe, the crystallization of party systtefiis, tpök place in the early twentieth century, with the extension of Vptuhg' fights to lower orders (Lipset and Rokican, 1967); In America, tjie jjtjŕty system, or the 'third party system' as it is known in American ppjjticsal science literature, had largely been set by the middle of the ňiriéteehtii century, Afterwards, no other parties were able to join the systpinJ The process of building national parties was a matter of fprniing típajltions of parties rooted in local politics. The national Dempcratič párty^ fpř instance, was little more than the concerted efforts of state arid local parties to win national elections. The national party had little control oyer the local parties. Near the end of the century, the parties weifte hi theif heyday as Vote-getting institutions. In the 1876-92 period as á whplpj 77 p,tef cent of the eligible electorate voted in presidential elections, 82 |}er cent outside the South (Kleppner, 1987, p. 43). Aside frpiii characteristics of the electoral system and the caution of trade union leádets v Who avoided close connections to political parties, inclúdjrig nasicefit fjirmeNabour parties, for fear of losing membership - tije sheer sfreflgth pf the two major parties helped tp prevent third parties jjf" stt$ kitid frptn becoming permanent contenders (Shefter* 1983: 198pj; The_nineteerlth-čentury parties Were ppiar$jipj a|§fjg fWíf lihěSt first, they w£rjj3ividéTaccord"ih"g' to sécBQnľlň'j^'^^yíďcjje' jjk'fj '(áte'ilittptéentíi century when the Republican party wpn national power, it was because of its strength in the industrial North and the Midwest, the main sources of opposition of the extension of the system of slaver)'. Although the Democratic party was competitive in these areas, it was strongest in the South. After the end of the Reconstruction, Republican influence there was increasingly diminished, pardy because of the sectional split and especially because of the restriction of the suffrage, which resulted in a one-party South by the end of the century. Second, the party system was diyidedalong; ethnic and religious lines. People subscribing to ritualistic religions^ such as CatHolicismariH German Lutheranism, tended to vote Democratic, and those subscribing to pietistic religions, including most strands of Protestantism, tended to vote Republican (Kleppner, 1979). This separated the two parties on questions of personal liberty, with the Republicans frequently supporting temperance legislation and the Democrats opposing all such restrictions. Business and labour, like other organized groups, had to work within this system to gain leverage over public policies. The two major parties appealed.to.both upper and lower classes, drawing contributions mainly from tie former and votes from the latter. Party divisions split the upper classes: the industrial elites of the North stayed Republican and the landed elites of the South became Democratic. The parties also split industrial workers along ethnic and religious lines. At the end of the nineteenth century, in the wake of the depression of 1893, industrialists and industrial workers had thrown their electoral support mainly behind the Republicans, and the party system continued to be polarized along sectional lines (Bensel, 1984; Kleppner, 1987). As parties declined in strength they became divided in different ways. Industrial workers left the Republican party in large numbers at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s. Its nativism and the failure of its economic policies pushed industrial workers into the Democratic fold, and Democrats mobilized many working-class immigrant voters and their wives who had not previously voted (Anderson, 1979). Similarly, the Republicans, with their historical opposition to the national income tax, drew heavier support from right wing forces such as organized business groups. The Democrats, however, were still a sectional party and therefore an unlikely vehicle for policy reform and state-building. There was always a southern delegation devoted to thwarting national power and redistributive policies. An absence of party dominance characterized the second half of the nineteenth century. The Republican party was able to control the national government only from 1861 to 1875. During this period á number of issues were settled, notably, the end of slavery, but also the tariff and the so-called money question, how to retire 'greenbacks', and the return to the gold standard (Sharkey, 1959; linger, 1964). This was followed by a period of tWp-party cpmpetitjpjt fôstílig |ihtÍl Í896, During this time, the Republicans and D^mpcřát$ Ě^jl ítyritrolled ftboijt half of the nationalelectorate (Kleppner^ 1979). YN0 fyifátŽÚ W6 ^'8S tfrat only rarely did one party control bq$i tlife fjťfesidehpy alio! CpHgrcSs, In this sense, the Republicans ran thé jpvérpípip pjfjiý for1 fp(jfť V(í(irS( arid the Democrats for two. This periqcľof paity ji^^^^rí» dt1 tn|slrtclý of dominance by one party* corresponded with the tise bf diä'tflbliťlVe ptftrtic policies, such 3,ä Civil War pensions, as th| R^p)$hc|iftj blp M* support to break the electoral stalemate. American parties and public ppUci^ei jf/jl $'{ í$et)tíetfi řť/Wj' The election of 1896 brought 34 ýeafs 'p( Rejitiplicjm Hege>iltmy> With brief, if significant, interruptions (Bumjláirji 197Ö)* Th? Republicans controlled the national government from l|?7 fö 1911 and again from 1921 until the end of. the. decade;. For fpUť ýeflřs In the 1910s the Democrats controlled die presidency atlcj yori|ťeSSř Tlll# control was due, however, to a split within the Republic^.'' tile' Pfdgfešsjye party, an urban middle-class movement (bphpšiíj|||ji} fct}j£íty witH thö reform of political parties and governmental pracúce, jStifijptei} eilpugjt votes to elect Democrats and to influence policie^ a^tjic-iijpi rjpt ejrttjilgij to Wirt a permanent place in American politics. fi|püb|jeatii q^tfu^áňáe ittefalt thqt I indusjm^jprojtegtion remained-.the m^^^l^ijípitíijc^^f^ apt! that iiSc^^texe^ as; á; result pf these taxation póUcíeTrn|tio^^ and confined to the stateleyel» where' nípíá fftVfiÚtwle political coalitions might conspire to enact them. The Depression ended this period df rule arjtj completed the process pf turning the. voters of large. ..cítipÉj intp tlernopřatSi Democrats dominated the presidency and Cpngie^ ípť most of the next two decades. It was during this period" tliat the b^ěttk \ylth pást public policies was most thorough. The Depression, aiiidj more important, a large Q_gí32°HäO£iBaJOGiy in Cäpgresä gaye. the administration powers toTSuld | state instituljiypn^, and en^g^n^Wujja^cjgg. yrt^rt and labour Democrats c!arninated in Congress1 from 1935 \o 1939 aild to a lesser extent from 1939 to 1943. As mentioned preýiouslýi the new economic policies involved direct qontrolsy national empldvMent polipies wer^pursued. and modern,, collective sociajjpendjM pbljéigg irvere begiinTBy the end of the 1930s, many new programmes of piffiic^mnldyment and social spending had been set in motion; admirílstŕätípri planting bodies had gained sufficient tenure to devise a social qempp^tlp political agenda. The dominance of the Ďemotírate^ai^t^ q support pwnihiaiiv iPH ťrttnj]^ľrfiž; ^ij^fírgfiiifeťfj.ía^pi'r íKipistacie i ra^^JüTpXcementing orah ajliahpeJrais tjb^ weakness of labour* In i 322 EDWIN AMENTA AND THEDA SKOCPOL 1933 there was little organization qf labour to speak of, about 11 per cent of the non-agricultural labour force. Labour's upsurge came mainly as a result of Democratic policies to promote it. Despite the dampening effect of low economic activity on labour organization, workers streamed into the industrial unions, especially after 1935. That year saw the passage of the so-called Wagner Act, protecting uniq^oj^anizatjon and authorizing colle^tíy^eílbJ^r^aming. The process accelerated during the SecbnčTWorld Warwhen labour. mainly traded wage restraint for organizational gains (Brody, 1981, ch. 3). As labour organized, the connection between it and the administration and urban Democrats in Congress became closer. Yet Democratic dominance did not bring to power a cross-class coalition of workers and farmers. Pardy this failure had to do with Roosevelt's initial reluctance and later inability to purge conservative Democrats, especially in the South; in that region the dominant planter class and the state Democratic parties opposed generqus social spending policies as a threat to the system of labour control (Quadagno, 1988). The South was riddled with rotten boroughs where poor blacks and whites were denied the vote and political representation. Iii the absence of such a cross-class coalition, to pass elements of the quasi-sqcial-demqcŕatíc agenda required the congressional presence of a labour-supported president and a coalition of urban Democrats in Congress.8 Although Roosevelt was elected four consecutive times and Truman was elected in 1948, Congress met these strict standards only from 1935 to 1939, the period pf greatest reform. It was close to achieving this standard from 1939 to 1943, and again from 1949 to 1951. These periods witnessed the greatest gains in collective social spending policies. With this sort of political coalition, the administration and. its supporters could overcome the opposition of Republicans and.rural Democrats. Needless to say, the requirements for forming such a coalition were daunting and were made more formidable by the rural bias of political institutions. For this coalition to control the 435-seat House of Representatives in the 1940s, for example, it was necessary to win almost all of the. approximately 240 districts where labour had & strong, electoral presence. One can go too far in comparing the Democrats to social democratic parties. Although the two were connected electorally, neither the Democratic parry nor organized labour was bound by the policies of the other, unlike most social democratic parties. The looseness of the connection between labour and party made it possible for labour to win social welfare battles in its dealings with capital and lose them in the political arena. Injthe. immediate pöst-warjperiod, labour reached the peak of its organized power.. In.,1.9.45,. ujjion members accounted, for 35".5 per.ce.nt of'ffie^äoíi^agnčultural labour force"-eight percentage points higher man the l938"^%1^US^énšuš7T975, p. 178). During the war, AMERICAN POLICY DISTINCTIVENESS 323 American organized labour grew at a faster tjjjt# äfitt tyfls oh the offensive so far as strikes were poncerned, nyuch hj^e! J50 that! British labour (Amenta and Skocpol, 1983). Yet, unlike in Iflfótl, AiTtßric^ organized labour's strength with respect to Capital quťfj^jrt %$ stfeiigtl) pf Hs allies in the national government. Althoughlábquť^§)^dftt|'SffitygP|äjis|Q|j,.aJid h^Mi^ßolicigs in its dealings with. the StäílpU,' VTÄn^tanri the immediate post-war period, it achieved more $iitc4äs Ayíth .patíitál, This ire and private s,uc|3|?s^ evefjtqa| y rßJ$$;{J, inj combination of public failure and pfjyate ^uCpŔg^ eveí|ti|'fí}}y ŕi^iilll^^injj g^te^^ectiró^ in the prqyisiöij oif .pfihsjq^ fjn'jj (ieajtlt belíe'fitfl; organized industrial workers Were able to atjcj ft private tief qf benefits to pre-existing public ones: In the post-Second World War period^ pp|iľ|jietitíq|i rjetWötill partisan factions has resembled the type °T Par$ ^ftfp^tfflfifl flršvajent in the late nineteenth century; with similar effects qií pobijí! jpojicjes, For the most part, neither left-wing nor right-)vijij| tiqljtlcaj fatitiqnS have, been able to achievé^a' sustained^qiriíiianťp, «f gq^ßrnfliöhtaj institutions. Although''Congress has mainly btípři aóft(Íh^f} tiý W Democratic party, the presidency has shifted back arjd foŕtjt befi^r* tfie Píirties, Thjtí sort of overwhelming Democratic dohlinancife '$ y,$$0$ 'cj1at3Cter]siio ói\ th'elate 1930s occurred qnly dürlhg the, rhjíjtjjllj jftiiö \%Qä,< Similarly, ' the right has gained complete pqlitiqáj pqiitej' Ohiy duringtrie epríy 1980s. '"'...... ' ' '" : '"",.','./'. ' "Tjiejiostágrjaj^^ jr||ÚM the cOhStrtlCtlon of programmatic and comprehensive jijplicifcs qeVis^ by the ßXÖctitlve and has reinfrifced. rnnyrqgsiqnal fonjjyl Ö^lf i\íé iilílJiÍJi^ of ihost public spending policies. AlthqugH various lqcäl ppiltícái partie^ With their emphasis on patronage, have been weäk^nßcj (JfrfqtigjlqUt thd twentieth century, thenatronage . character, óf, Arriefieaü JJUblic policies was reasserted by way. qt c.qngressiqnft| con^qlj1'/Vnd although some have attacked this sort of patronage 35 cqrriititiprl, Strictly speaking it is not illegal and is thus more securely föühded, The breakthroughs in partisan control have accounted for the innovations trod Cutbacks of public policies during the period. Finally, Ú^-^I^^^JS^pŠSiSMi^' old aj^j^MíiÔmSÍU)á}Šl^^ wäs due" partly tP its establishment" yj^a. electqraj^eds m á more competitive pefToch *The mediating influence df state political institutions and the direct influence of political parties go far iri ahswering questions about the historical pattern and characteristics of ^rtlCricärt public policies. The character of American state political Institutions has predisposed American policies to take particular directions) and American political parties have reinforced some prédispositjqf^ atjcl opposed others. Parties have influenced the pace of change arid haVe detefrnined many characteristics of policies. Althqugh this; American experience of crises ___ ľ.dwu\ AMENTA ANĽ> THEDA SKOCPOL has mainly reinforced these patterns and characteristics, crises have also exerted an independent influence on policies. The Crises of Expression and War y -: ■, Crises can bring changes in public policies in two main ways. Crises, often prompte state-building and hence might augur later changes in public policies. During major crises political power shifts to the centre of the system, with national authorities gaining at the expense of others. The second way is more indirect. A crisis often implies.political failure, which in turn augurs changes in public policies. Previous policies and institutions are often discredited and new approaches attempted, frequently by new political regimes. Most major shifts in American electoral behaviour have come in the wake of depressions or wars, but 1 the crisis itself is not as important, as the direction of the political | changes. When crises are viewedin mis way and when American crises " are^placed in comparative perspective, it is the peculiar pattern of American geopolitical crises and their outcomes that have influenced the trajectory and character of public policies. Depressions have had less influence. Although crises have had to some extent independent effects, they have had a greater impact when working in tandem with developments in state political institutions and political parties. And the initial weakness of the national American state and the initial dispersion of power in the American system has magnified the importance of crises. To some extent the influence of geopolitical crises on American public policies has been negative. American geopolitical crises have not been as severe as those experienced by o.'thérTarge countries. America started from a favourable, if isolated, geopolitical position; no major opponent faced it on the North American continent. It took relatively little effort to subdue and expropriate the native peoples and, aside from the Civil War, the largest nineteenth-century war was against a militarily feeble former Spanish colony, Mexico. The weakness of early opponents had a mildly expansive effect on early public spending policies. A great deal of territory and other land-based, resources came under the control of the national state. But this occurred withput. building up state military and bureaucratic institutions. The..re.sources.at the disposal of the state gave the United States a comparative advantage in the early development of distributive public policies; the jack of opponents gave state-builders few opportunities, to build.nationai execiiüve..institutions. Similarly, the world wars of the twentieth century made less of an impact in ^the^ United Šta1te"sTíSn^ wars7~the" üJütedjStates enterecTjatäETwitlia lesser degree of economic mobiliza-tion^nd, like Britain, ojij&e^wjmiJBjr_sidje^of^^ Unlike AMERICAN, POLICY tySTÍwn'JVKNI'ÄS .325 Germany and Japan, the United Statek lifts jjieyer lost a major war and has never been conquered Or^ leaving a^if)e Pe»H Harbor, invaded. As was the čase in the nineteehtJi cfeilttiryj the comparatively minor influence of the world wars djd ndt s^iliUtMe the sharpening of the instruments of the American exefc|itiyé jätfifö, That America ended up on the winning side of most wars rej3fifift|ttifl American «täte political institutions. Having passed, the test qf^väK JTrglirdioss ol'fhe reasons for passing, the institutions were ÍJerceJÝefl ij$ VVorliing tíítd therefore requiring no major changes (see MarWiö|j iíjf/H). Alsií, flO Ľ(!)U|tierors came to rebuild them. This geopolitical story might lead biife if} hiiljeye thjtt W fp M d similar, though somewhat less severe, impi^t; f|fj /ijlleHetl IjS It lilts hud on Britain. This has not been die case. |ii E^ltH MddeTh ^ytli'.s eaine in an ascending pattern of severity, fj-qrh the $b|ť Újir ft) [lie fietiOUd World War. In America the influence of war kiju! jhj áitófniíiíh h)|N tjiken it pattern that contrasts with tiie British {iatt^'ji, £jt) far ijS ejyjllalt eaSt|ttllleS were concerned, An^cjr^rkt^jy^ tii£mneteenth century. The Cjvil WaV!claÍiijj>c| 0ÚUt \-1\ (leť jeenl dl the Americanization; this figure ^onipai-^ tu tfté ti, u per eetit and 0.31 per cent killed in the First and Second Wtjrjď \Vrtťíi ifespeelívely (Singer and Small, 1972), On the other hajt^ thLsMftílet' AmeHeuji wars, in Korea ánd. Vietnam, which werfe analogous to tftt; Hour tyar, have come in the late ..twentieth, centum As' á rfeouíb the^greittest pressure for I coaRe™|toöyÄ^ tjic World I had gainedjnuch experience with rridderrij uplijí fjijh'eiety ^•lU^pr.essutx' was jtianslated through á state wijth déniŕ5Ícťa|:}ti řcp|ese|itatlt|í;| jt|ld}),]$}'$ I s$tem tjptBic^^ (fíitiělfHelieiits. j ""TEjnálíý, the outcomes of wars haVe bijšheti the VH tttid JJHInJri i'l opposite geopolitical directions. At the .ehp pr'the iJOeqiUl \\'()ľ|d War, the United States was the major worjčj tódřjPMie 'Hid Mililitry power. Having accepted world leadership, ä fp]e If uSLjieiVed alter the First World War, the United Stete? blíilj: exéfti) tjye Institutions devoted to geopolitical purposes. The executive birinph/, düMi|Mted as JT Vvtis by UTe Democrats during*thé Second Wqrld V($ ithd jn,Miediate|y afterwards, had "to" pay döser attention to interriaticjr(4Í events* In lis battles with Congress, it used its influence to gain foreign el'onomie and milltarv aid as well as expanded military pró|rämnies ^iiq, relatively speaking, turned inattention away from the making of djjrrijsätlti puhlle policies. Domestic policies attracted the most executive attention ill the 1930s, and thus Congress was given more leeway in the ifialuilg of such policies. So, in addition to the post-war difficulties ifi achieving political coalitions in favour of expanded and prdgrahirn^ÜC dotoestic public policies, ^..w .uuun^auuu lui anu me geopolitical impact of the Second World War had its greatest independent effect on American employment and economic policies. The effects were twofold and worked in opposite i directions. On the one hand, the short-term full employment brought by = «atÄsiísJísässaä^^ ?f the Depression period. These were no longer immediately necessary and were eliminated when a conservative Congress was elected. The postwar resurgence of Congress doubtiess would have restricted these executively controlled programmes had they survived the war. On the other hand, the results of the war brought Americanjjglitical and economic predominance, and the international economic institutions ofthe posf-wäTpéíío^'wélŕétJevisgd in the interest of the United States. These arrangements have made it easier to run stimulative; fiscal..policies. For instance, the gold standard was abandoned when it came into | conflict with deficit spending. In addition, the new American geopolitical I role has required permanently higher levels of military spending.'5 These programmes have meshed neatly with the needs and constituencies of Congress. Analysts of American public policies often make the connection between depression and changes in public policy (Leman, 1977), claiming that the Great Depression stirred the American system into action. No doubt this is partly true, as crises often sanction state-building. And many of Roosevelt's reforms were aimed partly at recovery. However, it is difficult to' separate the direct effects of the Depression on policy from the political formation that accompanied it Jt helped to bring Roosevelt and the urban Democrats to power. Moreover, I th&JJfDjessjiraj^^ was severe in all j industrial countries. Therefore depression in itedf^cannot explain why | some countries, such as Germany,"Sweden and the United States, broke / with orthodox economic and fiscal policies and whV others, sucrfas L France and Britain, did not (Gourevitch, 1986; Weir and Skocpol, j 1985). A similar logic applies to the economic crises of the late / nineteenth and late twentieth centuries. Conclusion The resemblance of current American! public policies to nineteenth-century ones suggests questions about the prospects of change. Will the current policies be undermined? Will they be apgmented by other modern innovations such as health insurance? Will they continue indefinitely? These questions can be approached from two directions. One can look at the internal logic of the policies to determine whether they are stable. One can ask whether the conditions of party politics and geopolitical Crises that prompte change jft public policies are likely to occur. Both directions indicate that Slight modifications of current policies are in order, but ho fünc|ämenj:äl thärtges. The._i.ogic of the policies .suggest^ fhft. Continuation of distributive policiesjjrtit of a less lucrative nature. TJfjf %tWT^r^curreTit system of congressional patronage is rnófe stable Oh two counts than the nineteenth-century system of party p4ü/phflge. First, the most flagrant corruption has been removed; Despite* tjítí often repeated claims about unscrupulous welfare beneficiaries, the frdudulence of Civil War pensions has not been notched by current policies* Accordingly, although there have been complaints about the financing of congressional campaigns, there has been no sustained rtipVemertt to end congressional patronage procedures. Secqnd, pöjjjtifcajl pí>!'ÍÍfä sind fractions of political parties are no longer In control pf.dišfíi|ijítív^ jjífOg'fsninies. In the nineteenth century, the party caucus ^ í k|ý líí^hdtttäjfl fot making decisions about distributive policies. In t|$ f^pit^ j?Pflod thö System has responded to coalitions of individual Cpn^s^jljitfiij There; iS nothing' to attack - except Congress, án unlikely tírgetl On the other hand, unlike the jpase ih, $$ late! hihetßel|th century, the many functions ofthe tax code háve wepjíjäMjtj fjlthjr ÚiŮf\ feJhhVced file svstem. The weakness of tne US tax statě ařirjjěs ágainstiílUsJfOfnsion of grejterjdi^ÉHb.uftyieijgeriding.!iaiid agaifisj::t[i|' %$$íl\út\$$uij$\ üf Collective benefits'. With respecf't^total' tax recéij3)á $ jieYtíehtägt? Of GDP, the United" States ranked 11th amqijgst tije^Eßt) íjflíicfli$ itt 19S0 and dropped to 14th in 198Q - befpre! the lpf>ge j#x Cuts 0f the current administration. The American tax state |rip)y ^ 3 sjOwef fate than all but four OECD countries from 19ÍJQ to ÍVřjfy American taxes, excluding social security contributions, have gtowti lifflp SJnce. J95Q (OECD, 1981, pp.. 11, 13). The Americari revenue1 jv$nji$rjfy the Spciai security ĺat'ärätéhk-Jief tjiiintheüvefagö OECD contribution, which has grown at ä räté Higjief fltsh the ÜVfif'agÖ ' country, is hot likely to make tip thé ftůfi Iti tne future» The greatest increases in sociál security taxés'náyé' čtihje Orilf #t|čf íievV benefits have been legislated. The last major'irtcreiis^jlt pčnojfitS; tyftS legislated in 1972. To pay for this series of benefit jjipjr^šes, tax jfjef/eases Were passed in 1977 and ag^in after th# elect|pt|íj qf 1982. One source of change seems unlíjcejy tó iipget the System. The advantagesjafgeopolitical crises have disätítíeáifd with the possibility of there.qurrfince ofsuch Crises. ^t1urwa|5 like fhpSp Ofthe first half of the twentieth century cannot be repeated ahd the small wars of the superpower tend to drain resources rätheť th#tt to generate new ones (Wilensky, 1975, ch. 4). There wil) bt rtp Jhhpvations pf the tax system due to war if the Vietnam War and thé I9$i)š ttfilitajľy btilldfUp indicate the future. Although. mfiitary sptettdirtg, J'il|,.př.pb^blj'nWnjOt grow, it will remain at a high level. If the imp^efpfwoi^ jpoliticS suggTs'tTSnyulffiíg, it is that the United States will probably lose its comparative advantage in running deficits as,its. economic power.continues to decline and other countries, such as Germany, and Japan, begin to gain a voice in world economic affairs commensurate with their economic strength. Although the future may hold additional economic decline, a depression of the order of the 1930s is unlikely. „,„,**—,■ "**TRT finäT' šÔuľčT^Of^tfiange, the rise of pro-social policy political coaljtion^js less.unlikely. On the pňT"hanď~tHě stxengtE "of organized labour has slumped to its lowest point in the post-war period. Job security and arresting the slide" iň union organization have become more important to the labour movement than improvements in public policies.. Moreover, urban areas have declined relatively in population and congressional representation. Furtherrhore, the reforms in the last two decades in the process of nominating presidential candidates do not ensure a Democratic candidate will form a strong alliance with labour. On the other hand, the victory of democracy in the South has meant more black representatives and Congressmen relying on the votes of blacks who generally favour .generous and activist public policies. Constructing a left-wing political coalition will not bé impossible, but will undoubtedly be difficult and will depend pardy on the appearance of fortuitous disasters that the electorate attributes to the policies and rule of Republicans and the right. Even if a left-wing coalition comes to power, unless it rules for a longjperiod. of time,the public policies .of the United States will continue to have, one foot in the nineteenth century. Notes For helpful comments and criticisms on a previous draft, the authors thank Bruce G. Carruthers, Larry J. Griffin, Surtita Parikh, the members of the Workshop on Comparative Politics at the Universit}' of Chicago, and the members of the Workshop on the Comparative History of Public Policies. 1 The definition of patronage is drawn from Shefter (1983). 2 The following paragraphs on the history of pension legislation draw on Glasson (1918) and Oliver (1917)., 3 Evert when civil service reform succeeded, it usually specified that those previously holding positions would keep them. 4 The following paragraphs on tariffs dravy on Rainer (1972), Terill (1973), Rothman (1966, ch. 3), Poulshock (1962), Summers (1953) and Taussig (1905). 5 This section relies heavily on Amenta and Skocpol (1988). 6 It is no surprise that the literature on the so-called Tufte hypothesis, including Tufte's own work, concerning the influence of elections on spending has concentrated so heavily on the post-Second World War United States. iOLJIVJOJ 1X1 During the 1850s. the Republicans yyfctp a^lji^ei! filtd piifHWlWhlly joined the Democrats ]tp constitute the AntcHt^H fojiirtV kysft'liii U!' i'Ourm1 thus«.' parties changed considerably arid Aij|#|tí|(í ft$i|fu)íi fijiíílW) h«-S ťhqrai> terized these changes as tile creátjíjti ij$ (flVIl)' «jjlU'Ctrttl (irti'ty HyNlt-'IM, Although the four periods pf public pAjr' ftiftMfljjtU! U\ JjjÉH exlepl with these party systems, they dd npt oveMiffj fcjTi}ül()ti4y( 'j'lw Ľbtifttctuľiztllions here áre motivated only partly by elecíph}! ii(tot|jt|tir|li. For an extended discussion of this pöihj> ||0tf /i|Wht« rtlHl Mltcpol (1988). Compare the argument of Russett (t^\)). | jii dttitliO (lull blither American military spending in the postrwaŕ péríqd JS flutp fO the 'ratt)!le| til'leel', that is, to a political inability to decrease rnjljtajfY Np(i|ti||ng uftC't* n War, not lo an expanded American geopolitical röje'i ľ Refererjc^S Amenta, E. and Skocpblj T. 198a: Redéftnjrtg the New Deal; World War 11 and the Development of Sociál Provision ip the United States, |n ,M. Weir, A.S. Orloff, and T. Skofcppl (eds) f(iePél(lifá tf^Hvii Ptifhy hi the I nited Stales. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University }ífjš$!jj cit. 3, Anderson, K. 1979: The Creation tfá DéftoMieMerity IW~1'IU>. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 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