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Lobbying America
Lobbying Americatells the story of the political mobilization of American business in the 1970s and 1980s. Benjamin Waterhouse traces the rise and ultimate fragmentation of a broad-based effort to unify the business community and promote a fiscally conservative, antiregulatory, and market-oriented policy agenda to Congress and the country at large. Arguing that business's political involvement was historically distinctive during this period, Waterhouse illustrates the changing power and goals of America's top corporate leaders.
Examining the rise of the Business Roundtable and the revitalization of older business associations such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Waterhouse takes readers inside the mind-set of the powerful CEOs who responded to the crises of inflation, recession, and declining industrial productivity by organizing an effective and disciplined lobbying force. By the mid-1970s, that coalition transformed the economic power of the capitalist class into a broad-reaching political movement with real policy consequences. Ironically, the cohesion that characterized organized business failed to survive the ascent of conservative politics during the 1980s, and many of the coalition's top goals on regulatory and fiscal policies remained unfulfilled. The industrial CEOs who fancied themselves the \"voice of business\" found themselves one voice among many vying for influence in an increasingly turbulent and unsettled economic landscape.
Complicating assumptions that wealthy business leaders naturally get their way in Washington,Lobbying Americashows how economic and political powers interact in the American democratic system.
eBook
Changes in censuses from imperialist to welfare states : how societies and states count
\"Changes in Censuses from Imperialist to Welfare States, the second of two volumes, uses historical and comparative methods to analyze censuses or census-like information in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Italy, starting in England over one-thousand years ago. The authors argue that censuses arose from interactions between bureaucracies and social interests, and that censuses constituted public, official knowledge not where they were insulated from social pressures, but rather where there was intense social and political interaction around them\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Associational State
In the wake of the New Deal, U.S. politics has been popularly imagined as an ongoing conflict between small-government conservatives and big-government liberals. In practice, narratives of left versus right or government versus the people do not begin to capture the dynamic ways Americans pursue civic goals while protecting individual freedoms. Brian Balogh proposes a new view of U.S. politics that illuminates how public and private actors collaborate to achieve collective goals. This \"associational synthesis\" treats the relationship between state and civil society as fluid and challenges interpretations that map the trajectory of American politics solely along ideological lines. Rather, both liberals and conservatives have extended the authority of the state but have done so most successfully when state action is mediated through nongovernmental institutions, such as universities, corporations, interest groups, and other voluntary organizations.
The Associational Stateprovides a fresh perspective on the crucial role that the private sector, trade associations, and professional organizations have played in implementing public policies from the late nineteenth through the twenty-first century. Balogh examines key historical periods through the lens of political development, paying particular attention to the ways government, social movements, and intermediary institutions have organized support and resources to achieve public ends. Exposing the gap between the ideological rhetoric that both parties deploy today and their far less ideologically driven behavior over the past century and a half,The Associational Stateoffers one solution to the partisan gridlock that currently grips the nation.
eBook
American Relief Aid and the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War created a conflict for Americans who preferred that the United States remain uninvolved in foreign affairs. Despite the country's isolationist tendencies, opposition to the rise of fascism across Europe convinced many Americans that they had to act in support of the Spanish Republic. While much has been written about the war itself and its international volunteers, little attention has been paid to those who coordinated these relief efforts at home.
American Relief Aid and the Spanish Civil War tells the story of the political campaigns to raise aid for the Spanish Republic as activists pushed the limits of isolationist thinking. Those concerned with Spain's fate held a range of political convictions (including anarchists, socialists, liberals, and communists) with very different understandings of what fascism was. Yet they all agreed that fascism's advance must be halted. With labor strikes, fund-raising parties, and ambulance tours, defenders of Spain in the United States sought to shift the political discussion away from isolation of Spain's elected government and toward active assistance for the faltering Republic.
Examining the American political organizations affiliated with this relief effort and the political repression that resulted as many of Spain's supporters faced the early incarnations of McCarthyism's trials, Smith provides new understanding of American politics during the crucial years leading up to World War II. By also focusing on the impact the Spanish Civil War had on those of Spanish ethnicity in the United States, Smith shows how close to home the seemingly distant war really hit.
eBook
American anti-nuclear activism, 1975-1990 : the challenge of peace
\"American Anti-Nuclear Activism, 1975-1990 is a history of a series of anti-nuclear campaigns that took place in the United States in later years of the Cold War. Looking at national peace organizations alongside lesser-known protest collectives, it argues that anti-nuclear activists encountered familiar challenges common to other social movements of the late twentieth century. In these pivotal years, when anti-nuclear sentiment enjoyed a massive public profile, activists debated how to mobilize public support, maintain a successful public profile, and remain effective in their efforts. In an era marked by conservatism and the waning of the Cold War, these debates were especially important. By focusing on anti-nuclear campaigns as diverse as the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament, SANE, the Fast for Life, Mobilization for Survival, the Women's Pentagon Action, the Great Peace March, and others, this book demonstrates the complexity and vitality of a wide range of individuals, groups, and organizations who came together to save the world from nuclear devastation\"-- Provided by publisher.
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On the Fringes of Diplomacy
In recent decades the study of British foreign policy and diplomacy has broadened in focus. No longer is it enough for historians to look at the actions of the elite figures - diplomats and foreign secretaries - in isolation; increasingly the role of their advisers and subordinates, and those on the fringes of the diplomatic world, is recognised as having exerted critical influence on key decisions and policies. This volume gives further impetus to this revelation, honing in on the fringes of British diplomacy through a selection of case studies of individuals who were able to influence policy. By contextualising each study, the volume explores the wider circles in which these individuals moved, exploring the broader issues affecting the processes of foreign policy. Not the least of these is the issue of official mindsets and of networks of influence in Britain and overseas, inculcated, for example, in the leading public schools, at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and in gentlemen's clubs in London's West End.
As such the volume contributes to the growing literature on human agency as well as mentalité studies in the history of international relations. Moreover it also highlights related themes which have been insufficiently studied by international historians, for example, the influence that outside groups such as missionaries and the press had on the shaping of foreign policy and the role that strategy, intelligence and the experience of war played in the diplomatic process. Through such an approach the workings of British diplomacy during the high-tide of empire is revealed in new and intriguing ways.
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The Women's Joint Congressional Committee and the Politics of Maternalism, 1920-30
Documenting the rise and fall of a feminist reform powerhouse, The Women's Joint Congressional Committee and the Politics of Maternalism is the first comprehensive history of the umbrella organization founded in 1920 by former suffrage leaders in order to coordinate organized women's reform. Encompassing nearly every major national women's organization of its time, including the League of Women Voters, the Women's Trade Union League, and the National Consumers' League, the Women's Joint Congressional Committee (WJCC) evolved into a powerful lobbying force for the legislative agendas of more than twelve million women. As such, the WJCC was recognized by critics and supporters alike as \"the most powerful lobby in Washington.\"_x000B_ _x000B_Through a close examination of the WJCC's most consequential and contentious campaigns, Jan Doolittle Wilson demonstrates organized women's strategies, rhetoric, and initial success in generating congressional and grassroots support for their far-reaching, progressive reforms. The committee's early achievements spurred a business-led retaliation that challenged and ultimately limited the programs these women envisioned. By using the WJCC as a lens through which to analyze women's political culture during the 1920s, the book also sheds new light on the initially successful ways women lobbied for social legislation, the limitations of that process for pursuing class-based reforms, and the enormous difficulties faced by women trying to expand public responsibility for social welfare in the years following the nineteenth amendment's passage._x000B_
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