Editor's Introduction

| | ⅜ From the Editor Editor’s Introduction Jeffrey C. Isaac The American Political Science Association is a global orga- I raise them now because the current issue of Perspec- nization, and currently counts among its almost 15,000 tives features a theme that brings them to the fore—the members nearly 3000 individuals who are citizens of theme of the Obama Presidency. Not yet two years in nation-states other than the US. And only half of its 1600 office, President Barack Obama has become the topic of institutional subscribers are North American. At the same intense and often vitriolic controversy. The first African- time, the contemporary political science discipline that it American President in US history, his election seemed to represents, however cosmopolitan, is deeply rooted in the symbolize an “audacity of hope” about the future. And yet distinctive historical experiences of the United States. As within virtual days of taking office, amidst a serious finan- Ira Katznelson and Helen V. Milner observed in their 2002 cial crisis that clearly predated his election, President Centennial edition of Political Science: State of the Disci- Obama—seemingly by virtue of his very existence— pline, the professional association responsible for publish- provoked the heightened agitation first of a “Birther” move- ing the words you are now reading was born in the United ment raising questions about his very identity as an States during the Progressive Era, as an effort to more authentic American citizen, and then a broader “Tea Party” scientifically and thus more usefully understand the evolv- movement that has regarded him as a veritable King ing American state and its national citizenship: “American George III visiting a “long train of abuses” upon the Amer- ⅜ political science has specialized in developing particular ican people. The titles of a number of recently-published kinds of social knowledge. The modifier American has to conservative books speak volumes: To Save America: Stop- be taken seriously” (3–4). ping Obama’s Secular Socialist Machine by Newt Gingrich Indeed, as Raymond Seidelman and James Farr pointed (Regnery 2010); Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s out in their widely-cited 1993 anthology Discipline and Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity (Harper Collins 2010); History: Political Science in the United States, the first Amer- The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Com- ican professor of political science, Francis Lieber, was pre- munists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists by occupied with the emerging American national identity Aaron Klein (WND Books 2010); Power Grab: How during the time of the Civil War. And yet this progenitor Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bank- of our American political science was himself a German rupt America by Christopher C. Horner (Regnery 2010); émigré, steeped in European traditions of political thought Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed and shaped by the experiences of Continental Europe in My Generation by Jason Mattera (Thresholds Editions the aftermath of the French Revolution. Talk about hybrid- 2010); The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Consti- ity! Both the identity of our discipline and the identity of tution and Build an Imperial Presidency by Ken Blackwell the state to which it is genealogically linked—revealingly and Ken Klukowski (Lyons Press 2010); Culture of Cor- bearing the pluralistic designation “the United States”— ruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and have always been in question, compounds made up of Cronies by Michele Malkin (Regnery 2009); and Obama diverse and ever-changing elements. in Wonderland: Inside Insane Hussein’s Looking Glass: A Silly What is “American politics”? What are its boundaries, Book for a Serious Time by Joe Sansone (CreateSpace 2010). and are they marked by the water’s edge (surely not)? What The question of the “meaning” of the Obama Presi- is American political science, and to what extent are its dency has thus been linked to the question of the very problems and concepts and methods encompassed by its identity and authenticity of the individual, Barack “American” identity? We political scientists don’t ask these Obama—an African-American male, former community questions often enough. We are typically too busy doing organizer, law professor, and intellectual who was born the work of political science to engage in speculation of in Hawaii and raised in Indonesia and hails from Chi- this kind. And yet the questions present themselves, and cago and is a street baller with a penchant for smoking in certain situations and at certain moments they become cigarettes with a Muslim middle name, etc., etc., etc.,— unavoidable. who occupies the office. doi:10.1017/S153759271000201X September 2010 | Vol. 8/No. 3 733 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.229, on 25 Sep 2021 at 09:51:48, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759271000201X ⅜ | | ⅜ From the Editor | Introduction This issue of Perspectives comes out roughly two months of media framing and social movement/community orga- prior to the November 2010 midterm elections that will nizing, Dreier and Martin argue that a combination of be widely considered, especially by pundits and commen- liberal weakness and conservative mobilization made pos- tators, as a gauge of Obama’s political standing. It thus sible the success of a right-wing “echo chamber” that has seems appropriate for this journal of the American Polit- helped to stymie the Obama policy agenda. ical Science Association to focus attention on the contro- Our “Reflections” section consists of five substantial versies surrounding the Obama Presidency, which occupy essays focused on the current political balance of forces the attention of the US, as well as a world whose fate is and the challenges facing the Obama Administration. bound up with that of the US. Fortunately we had a num- Larry Jacobs’ and Desmond King’s “Varieties of Obam- ber of articles and essays in the publication queue that aism: Structure, Agency, and the Obama Presidency” is a spoke directly to these issues, and we were able to solicit critique of the widespread tendency in public and pundit additional essays to round out the discussion. The issue discourse to discuss the Administration in terms of the you are reading is the result. personal attributes of the individual, Barack Obama, who The issue’s two lead research articles both explicitly currently occupies the Presidency. Instead, Jacobs and King address Obama-related themes. develop the notion of “structured agency” and explain Jennifer Hochschild’s and Vesla Weaver‘s “There’s No how and why it is important to focus on the state and One as Irish as Barack O’Bama: The Policy and Politics of economic institutions that both enable and constrain Pres- American Multiculturalism” is a powerful historical account idential action and political decision-making more gener- of the relationships between identity classifications and ally. Writing in the midst of the early 2010 fiscal crisis, civic status in the US. Proceeding from the symbolism of they underscore in particular the importance of banking the election of Obama—an “African-American” and “multi- institutions and the complex ways that class power is orga- racial” individual whose racial identity was repeatedly raised nized and exercised. Indeed, like Jeffrey A. Winters and as an issue—Hochschild and Weaver insist upon the con- Benjamin I. Page’s December 2009 “Oligarchy in the structed nature of racial identity (a topic also discussed in United States?” their piece—and many of the essays that this issue’s Critical Dialogue between Robert Gooding- follow it—recalls debates of the early 70’s, centered around Williams and Melanye T. Price; in Keally McBride’s review Marxist theories of the state, that occasioned Charles Lind- ⅜ of George Shulman’s important American Prophecy: Race blom’s 1982 APSA Presidential Address, “Another State of and Redemption in American Political Culture; and in his- Mind,” and led to the “bringing the state back in” move- torian Nell Irvin Painter’s just-published The History of ment in political science. White People [Norton 2010]), and proceed to engage the Suzanne Mettler’s “Reconstituting the Submerged State” more general phenomenon of multiracialism in US poli- offers a compelling account of “The Challenges of Social tics. Outlining a number of the key dimensions of multi- Policy Reform in the Obama Era.” Mettler focuses on racialism, they argue that while multiracial identity is Obama’s agenda of reform in three areas of social policy— growing in the broader society, this does not necessarily taxation, higher education policy, and health care—and translate into political identification and organization. argues that the fundamental obstacle to reform has derived Hochschild and Weaver show how quickly Americans’ self- not from partisan opposition or legislative gridlock but understanding of race is changing, consider the role that from the specific character of the policy regimes associ- public policy has played and might play in fostering such ated with what she calls the “submerged state”: “a con- change, and comment on the ways this may in turn reshape glomeration of existing federal policies that incentivize or fail to reshape American politics. If one possibility is and subsidize activities engaged in by private actors and that “Obama” is the harbinger of the relaxing of politi- individuals....[which] fostered the profitability of par- cized racial identities, another is that the symbolic politics ticular industries and induced them to increase their polit- of “Obama” signals a resurgence of a populist identity ical capacity, which they have exercised in efforts to politics focused on fears of immigration and “terrorism.” maintain the status quo.” Mettler concludes that “Obama Peter Dreier and Christopher R.

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