The State of American Political Development in History

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The State of American Political Development in History THE STATE OF AMERICAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORY Brian Rutledge N a forthcoming historiographical essay about the Progressive Era, I Robert Johnston calls American Political Development (APD) “argua bly the most important strain ofscholarship in American political history over the last quarter century.” He then refers to several recent works by historians which draw on this strain in order to break new ground in investigating the American state and American politics. Two decades before Johnston’s pronouncement, however, historians had yet to embrace APD so readily. In 1992, Ira Katznelson, an influential political scientist with roots in the world of history, wrote an essay exploring the growing importance of the then burgeoning sub-field in political science.2 He observed that APD sprang from the social sciences, not history. “The most interesting, certainly the most audacious, work on American political history is being written by participants in this scholarly program,” he said, “most of whom are not members of history faculties.”3 Katznelson was referring to scholars like Stephen Skowronek, Theda Skocpol, and other social scientists, who, beginning in the early ;98os, set the standards for how to investigate America’s political past. At the time he was writing, most historians had renounced political history for social history, just as many would later give up social history for cultural history, a field that still dominates the profession. Today, Johnston thinks ofhistorians like William Novak and Brian Balogh as part ofAPD ‘Robert Johnston, The Possibilities of Politics: Democracy in America, 1877 to 19,9,” in Eric foner and Lisa McGirr, eds., The New American History, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, forthcoming). 1ra Katznelson, “The State to the Rescue? Political Science and History Reconnect,” Social Research, 59 (1992): 719-737. 3lbid, 721. 64 Brian Rutledge and several historians involved in producing APD scholarship believe that political history is alive and well.4 In this essay, I explore the relationship ofAmerican Political Devel opment to American political history. After briefly elaborating on why few historians investigated the evolution of American politics in the 198os, I trace the growth ofAPD by looking at several of its key texts and the major contributions made byAPD scholars to political history. Then, I investigate a few ways that political historians, beginning in the mid 199os, have adopted the concepts and conclusions of APD. While historians have always contributed to and drawn on APD scholarship, there has been a marked increase in the strength of this “strain” of scholarship within the field ofhistory between its birth in the early 198os and today. The story of how APD emerged as a dominant strain in political history over the last quarter century is largely the story of how non-historians broke new ground in the study ofpolitics while historians busied themselves with other subjects. As the tale unfolds though, more and more historians take their place next to other social scientists on stage. The most recent generation of historians have revisited the eclipsed study of politics by turning to cutting edge political science for inspiration and by successfully appropriating many aspects ofAPD. This is why, in 1992, Katznelson did not view historians as movers and shakers within APD, whereas today Johnston sees them as crucial to the field. As this strain of scholarship surfaced in the 198os, it remained little nurtured inside the discipline of history because many historians had lost faith in studying political structures. In 1986, the president of the Organization of American Historians, William Leuchtenburg, claimed that the status of the political historian within the profession had descended to “somewhere between a faith healer and a chiropractor.”5 Leuchtenburg pointed out that the Annales school and its emphasis on the longue durée had influenced the work of countless American histori ans in the 196os, leaving less and less room for the study of individual political events. Then in the 197os, social history had given historians microscopic vision, pushing them to investigate the intimate details of ordinary life. Many of these social historians devoted themselves to highlighting marginalized groups, like African Americans and women, and passed over national politics, which was perceived to be an arena dominated by elite white males. For those that stuck within the political 4Meg Jacobs, William Novak, Julian Zelizer, eds., The Democratic Experience: New Directions in American Political History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). 5William Leuchtenburg, “The Persistence of Political History: Reflections on the Signifi cance of the State in American History,” Journal of American History 73 (1986): 585-600, 587. Ex POST FACTO 65 arena, the “new political history,” which focused on statistical analysis and voting roll calls, did not prove viable. The trend failed to win new recruits and died off after the 197os. At the same time that these trends pulled historians from political history, Americas shifting political climate pushed them from politics in general. In the 197os, the nation suffered a massive mood swing as the optimistic post-war period of unprecedented economic growth turned into stagflation and depression. Americans shed their faith in govern ment institutions after the quagmire in Vietnam and the lawbreaking president Nixon trampled on public life.6 As the New Left collapsed, a growing conservative movement reworked the Republican Party and, by the 198os, barged into the White House. This New Right managed to quickly dismantle the New Deal liberal state and strip away government regulations in order to promote the free marlcet fundamentalism articulated by economists from the University of Chicago.7 In this dreary context of defeat and disillusionment, many historians turned away from political activism and lost interest in investigating the troubled institu tions of government. Despite this retreat from politics, one trend in the historiography did remain influential through the 198os which would prepare historians to later latch on to APD. Beginning in the 196os and continuing through the 198os, the Organizational Synthesis school of historians looked at how institutions developed over time and how they shaped society.8 To give an often cited example, in his 1967 book, The Search For Order, Robert Wiebe argued that during the Progressive Era Americans altered how they thought about organization in all spheres of life, economic, social, and otherwise.9 People increasingly valued centralization and more efficient ways of getting things done, which led to huge institutions, like national professional associations. While others had already studied bureaucracies, Wiebe and others from this school historicized American conceptions of bureaucracies and looked at how these new institutions defined the possibilities and limits of the era. 60n the Nixon presidency and the decline of American public life, see Bruce Shulman, The Seventies: The Great Sh(ft in American Culture, Society, and Politics (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2002): Ch. i. 7for an account of how Wal-Mart moms helped shape this ideology, see Bethany More- ton, To Serve Wal-Mart and God: The Making of Christian free Enterprise (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009). 80n the Organizational Synthesis, see Louis Galambos, “The Emerging Organizational Synthesis in Modern American History,” Business History Review, 44 (io): 279-290; and “Technology, Political Economy, and Professionalization,” Business History Review, 57 (1983): 471-493. 9Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1 920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967). VOLUME XX• 2011 66 Brian Rutledge This school of thought influenced countless works in several areas within the field of history, especially political economy and business history. In 1986, James Livingston, for instance, built on the work of Wiebe in his book about Progressive Era economic debates, Origins of the Federal Reserve System.’° He argued that elites forged class- consciousness while pushing to reform the country’s banking system between the 189os and the ;9;os. Instead of seeking short-term profit, they strove to redefine their place in the social world as modern, knowl edgeable leaders who could tame unwieldy markets. While Wiebe had seen institutional development as a reaction to technological innova tions, Livingston claimed that these businessmen were reacting to their low social standing, which left them overshadowed by the middle and working classes. Livingston’s book provides a good example of how the Organiza tional Synthesis pushed historians to explore the relationship between society and institutions. At the same time, it provides a look at political history before APD became fashionable in the discipline of history. Livingston described his book as an “attempt to integrate economic, social, and cultural history,” in other words, as everything except political history despite the fact that he chronicled the formation of a significant government institution.” To him, economics and class interests ex plained the Progressive Era. His work demonstrated the way that society and the state help constitute each other by showing that the modern ruling class in America came into existence in tandem with the develop ment of federal banking. As businessmen pushed for reform, they developed a similar social identity and shared interests. At the same time, this group was “able
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