Politics and jobs : the boundaries of employment policy in the United States

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Bibliographic Information

Politics and jobs : the boundaries of employment policy in the United States

Margaret Weir

Princeton University Press, c1992

  • : pbk

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

: pbk ISBN 9780691024929

Description

Americans claim a strong attachment to the work ethic and regularly profess support for government policies to promote employment. Why, then, have employment policies gained only a tenuous foothold in the United States? To answer this question, Margaret Weir highlights two related elements: the power of ideas in policymaking and the politics of interest formation.

Table of Contents

List of FiguresList of TablesPrefaceAcknowledgmentsList of Abbreviations1Innovations and Boundaries in American Policymaking32Creating an American Keynesianism273Race and Politics of Poverty624Public Employment and the Politics of "Corruption"995The Political Collapse of Full Employment1306Policy Boundaries and Political Possibilities163Notes181Index231
Volume

ISBN 9780691078533

Description

Americans claim a strong attachment to the work ethic and regularly profess support for government policies to promote employment. Why, then, have employment policies gained only a tenuous foothold in the USA? To answer this question, Margaret Weir highlights two related elements: the power of ideas in policy-making and the politics of interest formation. Rather than seeing policy as a straightforward outcome of public preferences, she shows how ideas frame problems and how interests form around possibilities created by the interplay of ideas and politics. By examining Keynesian macroeconomic policy in the 1930s and 1940s, labour market policies in the 1960s and 1970s, and efforts to develop new planning mechanisms in the late 1970s, Weir shows how early decisions restricted the scope for later initiatives. As a result, policies in the 1960s emphasized racial differences and thus drew opposition for creating special interest measures for Afro-Americans.

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