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Copyright by Donald Albert Zinman 2006 Copyright by Donald Albert Zinman 2006 The Dissertation Committee for Donald Albert Zinman certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Constructing and Reconstructing the New Deal Regime Committee: Bruce Buchanan, Co -Supervisor Walter Dean Burnham, Co- Supervisor Sidney Milkis Gretchen Ritter Daron Shaw Constructing and Reconstr ucting the New Deal Regime by Donald Albert Zinman, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2006 Acknowledgements With the completion of this dissertation, I conclude eight years of graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. Beyond this project, I owe a debt of gratitude to many people who h ave made my years in the Government Department’s doctoral program a success. First, I must thank the members of my dissertation committee for their years of advice, patience and careful critiques. I am grateful to Walter Dean Burnham, who served as my co -supervisor, continuing in that capacity even after his retirement. I have never met a finer scholar of American politics than him. My other co -supervisor, Bruce Buchanan, helped me to integrate the chapters and finalize the project. Daron Shaw helped me to clarify several chapters and provided invaluable assistance to me in the academic job market. I also extend my thanks to Gretchen Ritter, for I developed the idea for this project in her American Political Development seminar course in 1999. I also thank Sidney Milkis at the University of Virginia for graciously serving as the non- departmental member of this committee. Second, I must thank the fine graduate student colleagues with whom I have had the privilege of sharing my experience at the University of Texas. Throughout my various stages of the graduate program, they made my experience at UT an intellectually enriching one. They include Neal Allen, Brian Arbour, Brian Brox, David Crockett, Paul DeHart, Scott Garrison, Julie George, Joe Giammo, Daniel H ayes, Richard Holtzman, iv Jeff Ladewig, Seth McKee, Mark McKenzie, Allison Martens, Curt Nichols, Jeremy Teigen and Michael Unger. I look forward to many more years as friends and colleagues. Third, I must thank the staff and administration of the Governme nt Department for supporting me throughout my eight years in the graduate program. John Higley, the Department Chair, and Tse -Min Lin, formerly the Graduate Advisor, are to be thanked for providing a supportive environment for graduate students. Other staf f members are also to be thanked for making my experience in the Government Department a positive one. They include Annete Carlile, Debbie Coleman, Melva Harbin, Jo Anne Huber, Laura Leissner and Nancy Moses. Finally, I must thank my parents for thirty y ears of love and support. There is no more important job in the world than being a parent. It’s even more important than managing the New Deal regime. v Preface: The Importance of Rethinking Regime Politics Intra -regime change matters. It matters that we recognize its distinction from regime change, and it matters that we appreciate what kind of disruptive political environment occurs when a regime is reconstructed from within —welcome as some of those developments may be. If a moment of regime change is a political hurricane, then a moment of intra -regime change is a political tropical storm. A hurricane may destroy your house and change your life forever, but a tropical storm can do significant damage as well, even though your house is not destroyed. In e ither case, both events capture the average person’s attention. Moments of intra -regime change are not as rare as moments of regime change, but intra -regime change is rare enough, and its consequences are significant enough, to warrant our attention and our appreciation. Periods of intra -regime change also have the effect of setting much of the long- term political agenda, possibly for decades to come. The New Deal regime emerged from its reconstructive era infused with a greater commitment to social and cu ltural liberalism, with less emphasis on Cold War era commitments. In turn, the Republican opposition responded by becoming a more culturally conservative party, and by the 1980’s, an increasingly hawkish party on foreign policy and defense issues. We are still living under the basic parameters of this political arrangement today. For these reasons, understanding moments of intra -regime change and the reconstruction of a governing regime should be important to observers of American politics. vi When we analyze periods of macro political change, if we limit our analysis to just elections and party control of institutions, we may learn a lot about elections and electoral eras, but our knowledge of regimes will be incomplete. Elections can only tell us who win s and loses. That’s important, but regimes govern, and thus do more to shape the political universe than even a very advanced study of elections will tell us. How a regime interacts with its coalition partners, and how a regime articulates and translates i ts principles into policy commitments gives us a comprehensive understanding of the political environment. The New Deal regime’s reconstructive era is instructive in this regard. Even as the traditional New Deal electoral coalition was cracking up in the 1960’s, liberal policy achievements flourished well into the 1970’s, and traditional New Deal economic commitments were even ratified by Republican presidents. In addition, election data from George Wallace’s candidacy in 1968 is often depicted as a backlash against the New Deal regime, and/or as part of the progression toward a Republican dominated South . As I have shown, however, the Wallace campaign spoke to a large segment of voters through appeals that reflected the traditionalist, socially conservati ve elements of orthodox New Deal regime ideology, including tolerance for racial segregation, while at the same time supporting the regime’s traditional economic commitments. It is also important to take seriously the interaction of coalition partners . On any team, not all players are of equal importance to the team’s managers. This is true if it’s an international institution, a corporate organization or a baseball team. This project makes it clear that regimes are no different, and that the developme nt of American political regimes should be observed with an emphasis on their coalition partners. Regime vii managers control most of the levers of power in government and in their political party, while coalition partners seek to maximize their benefits from regime managers, in exchange for some form of tangible political support. The inequality of coalition partners within the New Deal regime, like the regimes that preceded it, establishes a framework for inherent competition within the regime, which sometime s has a major impact on the larger political universe. CHAPTER DESCRIPTIONS It will first be necessary to discuss the relevant literature that preceded this project, and this project’s place in that body of literature. Chapter One will scrutinize t he existing works on American political regimes and identify deficiencies in this body of literature. I will also address and categorize the major arguments that have been used by political scientists to describe the political universe between 1964 and 1972. Chapter Two will identify and defend the theoretical framework of this project, as well as the methods and case selections that will be used in this project. Chapter Three will cover the construction of the New Deal regime in the 1930’s, to further deli neate the distinction between regime transformation and intra -regime change. In Chapter Four, I will examine the role of the Johnson Administration as the managers of the New Deal regime in this disruptive era, with emphasis on the programs of the Great So ciety. Chapter Five will cover the civil rights movement and how its issue agenda became an explicit, leading part of the New Deal regime’s ideology by the mid -1960’s. In Chapter Six, I will turn to the uneasy relationship between the New Left and the New Deal regime, as the former had a significant impact on the latter. In Chapter Seven, I will turn to George Wallace’s 1968 viii presidential campaign as the best example of a Southern New Deal Democrat making a case on behalf of the regime’s traditional coalitio n partners, especially in the white South and among culturally conservative, northern white working-class voters. In Chapter Eight, I will test the proposition that this period of political conflict between 1964 and 1972 resulted in a redirection of the re gime’s principles and a rearrangement of the regime’s coalition partners. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS The basic findings of this project will be succinctly listed below. First, regimes are created upon a foundation of core principles of government and political a ction, but when the regime is created, some policy commitments stand out as defining characteristics of the regime. On the other hand, regime managers will relegate other policy commitments to matters of secondary status. This is especially true concerning issues that have explosive potential, and/or the ability to fracture the alliance of the regime’s coalition partners. During the New Deal regime’s first generation of existence, civil rights served as the best example of a secondary policy commitment that was subordinated to New Deal economic commitments. Second, accounts of the period between 1964 and 1972 as representing the “beginning of the end” of the New Deal order are misleading. Such characterizations can confuse the important distinction that must be made between a regime’s dissolution and a period of intra -regime change.
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