The Great Depression and the Great Recession in the United States both saw upsurges of social mov... more The Great Depression and the Great Recession in the United States both saw upsurges of social movement activity and newspaper coverage, but why did movements of both the right and left surge during the leftwing regimes of these periods? Why did the Barack Obama administration not produce the lasting leftwing mobilizations characteristic of the Franklin Roosevelt era? To address these questions and locate these episodes in historical perspective, we elaborate a political reform model, a macro-political theory that explains variance in movement presence. At its core, the political reform model holds that highly partisan political regimes and policy enactments interact to spur the presence of movements. We illustrate the argument and place these episodes in historical perspective with data from the Political Organizations in the News Project on all national movement organizations appearing in four major newspapers across 115 years. Historical analyses indicate that all periods of right...
" The"" Wi... more " The"" Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology" is a complete reference guide, reflecting the scope and quality of the discipline, and highlighting emerging topics in the field. Global in focus, offering up-to-date topics from an interdisciplinary, international set ...
Although most political sociologists and political scientists nowadays either consider themselves... more Although most political sociologists and political scientists nowadays either consider themselves or are deemed “institutionalists,” key differences remain among major schools of institutionalism (see reviews in Pierson and Skocpol 2002; Amenta 2005). In this chapter, we review sociological institutionalism, historical institutionalism, and political institutionalism. We discuss their similarities and differences, theoretical and methodological insights, research gains, analytical problems, and prospects for the study of politics. To focus our discussion, we mainly consider research regarding the development of public policy, the terrain on which many advances in political sociology and political science have taken place and an occasional battleground for these approaches. The basic similarity in all institutional theoretical claims is that something identified at a higher level is used to explain processes and outcomes at a lower level of analysis (Clemens and Cook 1999; Amenta 200...
Most social scientists approach taxes as reluctantly as if they might hasten that other great ine... more Most social scientists approach taxes as reluctantly as if they might hasten that other great inevitability. Political scientists and sociologists prefer to address the sunny world of public spending, ceding the gloomy business of taxation to tax specialists and the dismal science of economics. But just as it is impossible to understand life without considering death, it is impossible to understand economic redistribution through social spending without considering taxation. This is especially true for tax “expenditures,” commonly known as loopholes or breaks, which reside in the depths of the tax code. That is the fiscal netherworld explored by Christopher Howard, assistant professor of government at the College of William and Mary. Howard seeks to uncover what he calls America’s “hidden welfare state”: tax expenditures—departures from the regular tax structure for specific groups or activities—with social welfare purposes. Social welfare purposes in turn are defined by the budgetary categories deemed by scholars to constitute public social welfare expenditures. Some examples are the deduction for mortgage interest for home owners and the earned income-tax credit (EITC), which has been newsworthy in recent years as a means to reform welfare. In his quest to chart the current size and contours of the hidden welfare state, Howard makes extensive use of analytical and theoretical maps for public social spending policy as well as developments in the tax policy literature. Howard finds that the hidden welfare state is much more sizable than has been generally recognized—constituting about $400 billion in 1995 or almost half the amount of social welfare outlays. With his discovery, he raises the possibility that American exceptionalism in social spending— commonly understood as relatively low spending for and tardy enactment of social programs—may be a matter of how social welfare is addressed, perhaps through a combination of social and tax expenditures. What is more, U.S. tax expenditures often parallel social expenditures in function, with both giving great attention to old age. The major exception here is in housing policy, for which activity through the front door is greatly surpassed by its back door counterpart. His mission is also to address the origins and development of the hidden welfare state. He does this mainly by tracing four loopholes across the 20th century. These are cleverly chosen to vary according to whether the tax expenditure is relatively inclusive or means tested and whether it is a cash transfer or an in-kind benefit. Employer pensions and the EITC are both cash transfers; pensions are relatively inclusive, and the EITC is means tested. Thus employer pension loopholes are con-
Research on the political consequences of social movements has recently accelerated. We take stoc... more Research on the political consequences of social movements has recently accelerated. We take stock of this research with a focus on movements in democratic polities and the United States in comparative and historical perspective. Although most studies demonstrate the influence of the largest movements, this research has not addressed how much movements matter. As for the conditions under which movements
The Great Depression and the Great Recession in the United States both saw upsurges of social mov... more The Great Depression and the Great Recession in the United States both saw upsurges of social movement activity and newspaper coverage, but why did movements of both the right and left surge during the leftwing regimes of these periods? Why did the Barack Obama administration not produce the lasting leftwing mobilizations characteristic of the Franklin Roosevelt era? To address these questions and locate these episodes in historical perspective, we elaborate a political reform model, a macro-political theory that explains variance in movement presence. At its core, the political reform model holds that highly partisan political regimes and policy enactments interact to spur the presence of movements. We illustrate the argument and place these episodes in historical perspective with data from the Political Organizations in the News Project on all national movement organizations appearing in four major newspapers across 115 years. Historical analyses indicate that all periods of right...
" The"" Wi... more " The"" Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology" is a complete reference guide, reflecting the scope and quality of the discipline, and highlighting emerging topics in the field. Global in focus, offering up-to-date topics from an interdisciplinary, international set ...
Although most political sociologists and political scientists nowadays either consider themselves... more Although most political sociologists and political scientists nowadays either consider themselves or are deemed “institutionalists,” key differences remain among major schools of institutionalism (see reviews in Pierson and Skocpol 2002; Amenta 2005). In this chapter, we review sociological institutionalism, historical institutionalism, and political institutionalism. We discuss their similarities and differences, theoretical and methodological insights, research gains, analytical problems, and prospects for the study of politics. To focus our discussion, we mainly consider research regarding the development of public policy, the terrain on which many advances in political sociology and political science have taken place and an occasional battleground for these approaches. The basic similarity in all institutional theoretical claims is that something identified at a higher level is used to explain processes and outcomes at a lower level of analysis (Clemens and Cook 1999; Amenta 200...
Most social scientists approach taxes as reluctantly as if they might hasten that other great ine... more Most social scientists approach taxes as reluctantly as if they might hasten that other great inevitability. Political scientists and sociologists prefer to address the sunny world of public spending, ceding the gloomy business of taxation to tax specialists and the dismal science of economics. But just as it is impossible to understand life without considering death, it is impossible to understand economic redistribution through social spending without considering taxation. This is especially true for tax “expenditures,” commonly known as loopholes or breaks, which reside in the depths of the tax code. That is the fiscal netherworld explored by Christopher Howard, assistant professor of government at the College of William and Mary. Howard seeks to uncover what he calls America’s “hidden welfare state”: tax expenditures—departures from the regular tax structure for specific groups or activities—with social welfare purposes. Social welfare purposes in turn are defined by the budgetary categories deemed by scholars to constitute public social welfare expenditures. Some examples are the deduction for mortgage interest for home owners and the earned income-tax credit (EITC), which has been newsworthy in recent years as a means to reform welfare. In his quest to chart the current size and contours of the hidden welfare state, Howard makes extensive use of analytical and theoretical maps for public social spending policy as well as developments in the tax policy literature. Howard finds that the hidden welfare state is much more sizable than has been generally recognized—constituting about $400 billion in 1995 or almost half the amount of social welfare outlays. With his discovery, he raises the possibility that American exceptionalism in social spending— commonly understood as relatively low spending for and tardy enactment of social programs—may be a matter of how social welfare is addressed, perhaps through a combination of social and tax expenditures. What is more, U.S. tax expenditures often parallel social expenditures in function, with both giving great attention to old age. The major exception here is in housing policy, for which activity through the front door is greatly surpassed by its back door counterpart. His mission is also to address the origins and development of the hidden welfare state. He does this mainly by tracing four loopholes across the 20th century. These are cleverly chosen to vary according to whether the tax expenditure is relatively inclusive or means tested and whether it is a cash transfer or an in-kind benefit. Employer pensions and the EITC are both cash transfers; pensions are relatively inclusive, and the EITC is means tested. Thus employer pension loopholes are con-
Research on the political consequences of social movements has recently accelerated. We take stoc... more Research on the political consequences of social movements has recently accelerated. We take stock of this research with a focus on movements in democratic polities and the United States in comparative and historical perspective. Although most studies demonstrate the influence of the largest movements, this research has not addressed how much movements matter. As for the conditions under which movements
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Papers by Edwin Amenta