Policy Making Is Decision Making: a Response to Hattam John D
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Studies in American Political Development, 18 (Spring 2004), 70–80. Policy Making Is Decision Making: A Response to Hattam John D. Skrentny, University of California, San Diego How should we explain politics and policymaking their activities. Although mistaken, this critique is not in one of the most tumultuous and active periods in surprising to me. Telling the story of disadvantaged the history of the American state? Victoria Hattam groups in the 1960s and 1970s with reference to white and I approach the same topic from different starting men in suits is sure to provoke those who are used to points and with different goals. While she argues thinking of that period as one of protest – effective for attention to grass roots mobilization, I look to the protest – especially if one took part in those protests. policymaking process. I believe the study of policy Focusing on the suits (and Republican suits, no less) change should begin at the center of power, where seems to imply that social protest did not, and does policy decision-making takes place, and should as- not, matter. This was not at all my intention. The sume nothing about the relevance or role of the po- book’s message about protest is different: protest is litical grass roots. Policymakers themselves are always necessary sometimes, but not all the time, and differ- part of the story of policymaking. Grass roots groups ent groups meet different degrees of resistance to are sometimes key actors, yet their impact on policy- their goals. making must be demonstrated, not assumed. Assessing Hattam takes the heart of the book to be Chapter this impact and understanding policy development 4, which explains the expansion of affirmative action, also requires examining cases of failure along with and states that the book is about how some groups be- cases of success, and I believe Hattam’s neglect of the came “minorities.” Although Chapter 4 addresses comparative framework in my book leads her analysis that important topic, the book is about more than astray. that, and about more than the impact of social move- In this article, I use the occasion of Hattam’s elo- ments. It is about the development of the policies to quent and engaging critique to bring attention to larg- guarantee rights for minorities. I defined the minor- er issues of general concern to all scholars studying ity rights revolution as the sudden growth of law, reg- political change. I first explain the purpose of The Mi- ulations, and court decisions that established nority Rights Revolution (henceforth, MRR), respond- nondiscrimination rights for groups that policymak- ing to some of Hattam’s charges. Second, I provide a ers saw as disadvantaged but that were now defined by theoretical background and justification for MRR’s social class (MRR, 4). The book is intended to explain “top-down” research design. Third, I analyze Hattam’s this policy revolution, which occurred mostly be- alternative approach and assess it. Last, I turn to the tween 1965 and 1975. It lays out several puzzles that questions of politics and morality that are necessarily need to be explained: the timing of the revolution, its part of any scholar’s work studying policy change. bipartisan nature, its speed, and its limited expansion in terms of groups included. Part of the answer to the question of timing comes EXPLAINING THE “RARE AMERICAN EPIPHANY” from the creation of the post-World War II global hu- Hattam’s analysis rests on the notion that MRR is man rights culture and America’s strategic interests about the irrelevance of minority protest groups and during that period. During and after World War II, nations of the world came to a near-consensus on the I thank Gareth Davies, David Hollinger, Catherine Lee, Rebecca value of the human right to nondiscrimination, espe- Plant, Catherine Rymph and Thomas Sugrue for helpful com- cially the right to be treated without regard to race. ments and encouragement on this essay. The United States made this a centerpiece of its ratio- 70 © 2004 Cambridge University Press ISSN 0898–588X/04 $12.00 POLICY MAKING IS DECISION MAKING: A RESPONSE TO HATTAM 71 nale for going to war with the Nazis, and the nondis- the latter desired by many activists who held power in crimination right was institutionalized in the United the agencies, Congress, or the White House. Howev- Nations. Cold War competition reinforced this right er, the shape and tempo of politics flowed from these as the United States and the USSR competed for the perceived meanings and categorizations. allegiance of emerging nations in Africa and Asia; I do not claim that nonblack minorities were “po- America had a strategic interest in supporting litically quiescent.” My argument is that we cannot ex- nondiscrimination rights at home to combat first Axis plain the speed and timing of the minority rights and then USSR propaganda. Growing U.N. member- revolution by focusing on the activities of social move- ship of African and Asian nations augmented that ment organizations. In other words, the hypothesis propaganda by pushing nondiscrimination issues that the minority rights revolution can be explained onto that organization’s main agenda. A combina- by social movement strength is almost certainly in- tion of factors, including black civil rights movement correct. For this to be correct, the groups that won activity and these global pressures, finally led to the recognition and policy most quickly (Latinos, Asians, Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the Immigration Act and American Indians) would have to be stronger of 1965, which ended national-origin discrimination and more active than women (whose victories came in admissions. The stage was set for the revolution. later and were resisted more), white ethnics and I argue that the Civil Rights Act had three im- gays/lesbians (who failed). This is obviously not the portant effects: it legitimized political targeting of case, especially when we consider Asian American minorities with policy designed to aid them, it pro- mobilization compared with mobilization of women vided a model for future civil rights laws (later ex- and even white ethnics, and gays/lesbians. Again, the tended to women in education and the disabled), point is not that Asian Americans were politically in- and it established government agencies that gave real active, but that their mobilization on the federal is- policymaking power to persons with a concern for sues I examined was less than these other groups. minorities. Based on perceptions of group meanings Moreover, I was careful to show in the book specifi- and cultural categories, administrators and White cally what minority advocates were demanding when House officials began to establish a framework for ex- they did communicate with the government in letters panding minority rights to those groups they saw as or meetings. Latinos were most active, but they gave analogous to blacks. Lawmakers saw different mean- low priority to affirmative action and bilingual edu- ings in different groups, thus categorizing them in cation before enactment of these policies, and in- different ways, and creating limits and resistance to stead expressed concerns with government jobs and policy expansion for groups they saw as different recognition in White House conferences. Finally, from blacks. Along these lines, the book explains the even when there was grass roots mobilization and rapid expansion of employment affirmative action, protest by nonblack minorities, it was local, and the minority capitalism affirmative action and procure- federal policymakers normally evinced little or no ment “set-asides,” and university admissions affirma- awareness of it. In fact, in the case of bilingual edu- tive action to include Latinos, American Indians, and cation/language rights, I describe some of this local, usually Asian Americans, the slower development of activity, such as Mexican American protests or de- employment affirmative action for women, bilingual mands directed at local schools (in East Los Angeles education and language rights in the schools primar- in 1963 and 1968, in Abilene, Texas, in 1969, and in ily for Latinos, women’s equality in education (Title Crystal City, Texas, also in 1969), even though policy- IX), and disability rights (Section 504 of the Rehabil- makers never mentioned this activity as reasons for itation Act of 1973). It also shows negative cases: white their action (MRR, 196, 421). ethnics mobilized and lobbied to be included in af- Rather than argue that nonblack minorities were firmative action and failed, and gays/lesbians mobi- politically quiescent, I show that they did not mobi- lized for basic nondiscrimination rights and failed. lize on anything near the scale of African Americans, Policymakers’ perceptions of groups are at the cen- and did not have their mobilization repressed in com- ter of the analysis of a period that Hugh Graham ap- parably violent ways. Nonetheless, their lower levels propriately called the “rare American epiphany.”1 I of activity sometimes translated into relatively spec- can see no other way to explain why they immediate- tacular policy gains. To me, the exciting and surpris- ly considered Latinos, Asian Americans, and Ameri- ing thing about this policy revolution was that these can Indians to be minorities, resisted women for a few previously neglected groups did not need compara- years, and ultimately refused to see white ethnics and ble mass mobilization to win inclusion in policy. This gays/lesbians as minorities despite histories of dis- is not a moral judgment. It is, I believe, what the his- crimination and political mobilization. The driving torical record tells us. forces for policy included both political parties’ in- So what role did these social movement organiza- terests in votes, agency legitimacy, and justice goals, tions play between 1965 and 1975? Policy elites often anticipated group demands or constituency prefer- 1.