State University of New York at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4356
Michael H Schwartz
Professor
Sociology
516 632-7703
27-Oct-1997 05:54am EST
Dear All
Clarence Lo and I have edited a timely book called Social Policy and the
Conservative Agenda published by Blackwells, which takes a very close look at
policy making during the Clinton Administration. We think it gives the best
analysis thus far offered of why Clinton has enacted the conservative agenda
with such regularity and failed to follow through on the many positive
expectations of liberals and others.
The essays are each directed at a particular policy area and are written by
scholars who have specialized expertise in those areas, for example, Harvey
Molotch on urban policy, Francis Fox Piven on AFDC, and Jill Quadagno on social
security. Some of the essays are filled with juicy details about specific
policy developments (e.g., civilianization of research, social security
reform), others offer more general analyses about the how policy has been
formulated in that area in the last 15 years of so (e.g., AFDC, family policy);
some have both.
Taken as a whole, we think the book breaks important new ground in
understanding how the conservative policy trajectory established during the
1980s has maintained its momentum despite public reaction against it. Most
significantly, it offers a strong analytic alternative to the rejuvenated
consensus that governmental policy is somehow a reflection of public opinion.
The overarching viewpoint focuses on how government is influence by the
dynamics of the capitalist class, both through direct contact and through
embedded class interest.
While all the essays are intellectually challenging, most of them are
accessible to students and other non-scholars. We think it could be usefully
assigned in all manner of undergraduate courses-particularly those embracing
politics and/or United State social structure.
The book will be out in January in the U.S., so it could be assigned for Spring
semesters, particularly those that begin in late January. Desk copies will be
available in the next month or so. If you want to know more, let me know by
return email. If you want a desk copy, send me mailing address, course you are
considering it for and tentative enrollment.
Feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested.
I am attaching a table of contents for your perusal.
Best
Michael
Social Policy and the Conservative Agenda
edited by
Clarence Y.H. Lo and Michael Schwartz
Contents
Introduction
What Went Right? Why the Clinton Administration Did Not Alter The
Conservative Trajectory in Federal Policy
Michael Schwartz
Part One: Welfare, Social Security, and the State of Austerity
1. Welfare and the Transformation of American Politics
Frances Fox Piven
2. The Democratic Party and the Politics of Welfare Reform
Ron Walters
3. Urban America: Crushed in the Growth Machine
Harvey Molotch
4. Rhetoric, Recision, and Reaction: The Development of Homelessness Policy
Cynthia Bogard, and J. Jeff McConnell
5. Social Security Policy and the Entitlement Debate: The New American
Exceptionalism
Jill Quadagno
Part Two: Welfare-warfare Spending, Technology, and the Global Economy
6. Wealth and Poverty in the National Economy: The Domestic Foundations of
Clinton's Global Policy
Morris Morley and James Petras
7. America's Military Industrial Make-Over
Ann Markusen
8. Big Missions and Big Business: Military and Corporate Dominance of
Federal Science Policy
Gregory Hooks and Gregory McLauchlan
9. Active-competitive Industrial Policy: From Elite Project to Logics of
Action
J. Kenneth Benson and Nick Paretsky
10. Where Are All the Democrats? The Limits of Economic Policy Reform
Patrick Akard
11. Failure of Health-Care Reform: The Role of Big Business in Policy Formation
Beth Mintz
Part Three: Acting Out Conservative Ideology
12. The Malignant Masses on CNN: Media Use of Public Opinion Polls to
Fabricate the "Conservative Majority" against Health-Care Reform
Clarence Y.H. Lo
13. Popular Consensus or Political Extortion? Making Soldiers the Means and
Ends of U.S. Military Deployments
Jerry Lee Lembcke
14. Theorizing and Politicizing Choice in the `96 election
Zillah Eisenstein
15. The Right Family Values
Judith Stacey
16. Contradictions in the
