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The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History
In a series of fascinating essays that explore topics in American politics from the nation's founding to the present day, The Democratic Experiment opens up exciting new avenues for historical research while offering bold claims about the tensions that have animated American public life. Revealing the fierce struggles that have taken place over the role of the federal government and the character of representative democracy, the authors trace the contested and dynamic evolution of the national polity.
The contributors, who represent the leading new voices in the revitalized field of American political history, offer original interpretations of the nation's political past by blending methodological insights from the new institutionalism in the social sciences and studies of political culture. They tackle topics as wide-ranging as the role of personal character of political elites in the Early Republic, to the importance of courts in building a modern regulatory state, to the centrality of local political institutions in the late twentieth century. Placing these essays side by side encourages the asking of new questions about the forces that have shaped American politics over time. An unparalleled example of the new political history in action, this book will be vastly influential in the field.
In addition to the editors, the contributors are Brian Balogh, Sven Beckert, Rebecca Edwards, Joanne B. Freeman, Richard R. John, Ira Katznelson, James T. Kloppenberg, Matthew D. Lassiter, Thomas J. Sugrue, Michael Vorenberg, and Michael Willrich.
The contributors, who represent the leading new voices in the revitalized field of American political history, offer original interpretations of the nation's political past by blending methodological insights from the new institutionalism in the social sciences and studies of political culture. They tackle topics as wide-ranging as the role of personal character of political elites in the Early Republic, to the importance of courts in building a modern regulatory state, to the centrality of local political institutions in the late twentieth century. Placing these essays side by side encourages the asking of new questions about the forces that have shaped American politics over time. An unparalleled example of the new political history in action, this book will be vastly influential in the field.
In addition to the editors, the contributors are Brian Balogh, Sven Beckert, Rebecca Edwards, Joanne B. Freeman, Richard R. John, Ira Katznelson, James T. Kloppenberg, Matthew D. Lassiter, Thomas J. Sugrue, Michael Vorenberg, and Michael Willrich.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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July 10, 2023
Not sure what to think of this one. The Democratic Experiment is a collection of articles and chapters written by American historians, both of sociocultural school and the American Political Development school (APD), although APD seems to dominate. As is clear by the title, all the authors are held back by their liberalism and faith in the experience of the United States as an ultimately liberal and progressive project.
The first chapter, "Explaining the Unexplainable" by Joanne B. Freedman, seeks to demonstrate the historical and cultural-political context of the infamous Alien and Sedition Act passed under the Adams Administration in response to conflict with France and to suppress the "radical" Democratic-Republicans. Freedman emphasizes the complex and contradictory nature of both the Federalist and D-R political coalitions and the use of "honor" as a social construct that was fundamental to one's political power. Most interesting is the use of the case of Thomas Cooper and his attempted prosecution of the Federalist Alexander Hamilton under the Act as well as Freedman's highlighting of the Democratic-Republican's own use of tactics similar to the Sedition Act under the Jefferson Administration.
Reinhold R. John's "Affairs of Office" challenges the traditional narrative surrounding Jackson's victory in the presidential election of 1828 and the supposed inauguration of spoils patronage thereafter. Instead, John contends that federal executive departments were already being utilized as political machines by cabinet heads such as Henry Clay, that Adams refused to utilize this to his advantage in the 1828 election, and that the truly "new" part of the spoils system was that Jackson used it in a partisan manner to ensure a stable coalition of the middle and lower-class in the North that would unite politically with the slaveholders and yeoman farmers who made up the southern Democratic Party. Another, perhaps most interesting part of John's thesis, is his contention that Jackson and the Democratic Party switched to an "antidevelopmental agenda" to ensure the weakness of the organizational capabilities of the central government in an attempt to ensure the victory of anti-abolitionism.
William J. North's "The Legal Transformation of Citizenship in 19th Century America" focuses on the concept of citizenship in U.S. legal history, and how the concept was not truly employed under the latter half of the 19th century, particularly after the Reconstruction Amendments. Before this, as proved by the wording of the Dred Scott decision, "citizenship" and "residency" generally meant the same thing as long as one was considered white—this has important implications in supporting the scholarship of radical historians such as Gerald Horne.
Michael Vorenberg's "Bringing the Constitution Back In" discusses the "static" nature of the U.S. Constitution until around 1864, upon which many sectors of American society recognized the utility and possibility of constitutional amendment as a method for reform.
Sven Beckert's "Democracy in the Age of Capital" focuses on a particular incident in the history of New York—an attempted restriction of municipal suffrage to the emerging bourgeoisie in an attempt to ensure the financial stability of the New York City government. Perhaps the most interesting article in the book, Beckert contends that this incident was "a decisive moment in the emergence of a self-conscious bourgeoisie." (147) However, he discusses the Marxist understanding of history in a poor way—he confuses the Marxist recognition of the bourgeoisie's capacity for progressive political action in early revolutionary situations for a universalized progressivism in which the bourgeoisie should have always pushed for universal suffrage, etc. This is a poor understanding of the Marxist position.
Rebecca Edwards' "Domesticity versus Manhood Rights" challenges the common contention that the Democratic and Republican parties were ideologically homogeneous during the Gilded Age. Instead, she sees in the Republican Party a "domestic ideology" which sought to implement support systems and social control in favor of the era's understanding of the family, whilst the Democratic Party pushed an understanding of "manhood rights" which sought to limit the role of the state.
Michael Willrich's "The Case for Courts" examines the role of the Municipal Court of Chicago as a vector for Progressive Era reform in opposition to the traditional Progressive anti-courts stance. He makes good points, but I think he fails to see that the reason the Progressives were split on the courts were the very reforms he analyzes—the Progressives were not one-natured and often disagreed with one another. The fairly radical critiques of LaFollette and Charles Beard were attempting to solve issues fundamentally different than those of Taft.
Brian Balogh's "Mirrors of Desires" discusses Herbert Hoover's use of "interest group campaigning" and how his 1928 presidential campaign revolutionized the sectioning and division of American society into blocs which politicians appeal to individually through different means. Meg Jacobs' "Pocketbook Politics" analyzes the role of consumer politics from WWI to the post-WWII period, and how the consumer-labor alliance which was forged in the New Deal was lost through inflationary politics. Julian E. Zelizer's "The Uneasy Relationship" examines the role of resistance to federal taxation in American history,.
Thomas J. Sugrue's "All Politics is Local" demonstrates the centrality of localism in American liberalism, and how both the New Deal and Johnson's Great Society were forced to reckon with and ultimately bow to local politics whilst attempting reform. He notes the supremacy of "devolution" in the neoliberal era. Matthew D. Lassiter's "Suburban Strategies" is a fascinating article contesting the nature of the so-called "Southern Strategy." Lassiter contends that in the 1968 election, Nixon instead appealed to a moderate (white) conservative base centered in America's suburbs through anti-busing initiatives and in fact lost the 1970 midterm elections when the ultra-conservative Southern Strategy was genuinely implemented. Lassiter's article is perhaps the best of the bunch, and provides a very interesting read where interpreted from a Marxist lens—the installation of a petty bourgeois consciousness into the white working class (if it can be called that) through suburbanization. Sugrue loses me in the end when he quotes the neoliberal Tip O'Neill and championed "pragmatic liberalism." In my notes, I wrote: "historians from 2003 be like 'yes i am neoliberal, how can you tell?'"
Chapter 14, "From Hartz to Tocqueville," is James T. Kloppenberg's critique of Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition, and swings back and forth from very good to awful. Perhaps the most notable assertion is the similarity of Hartz's conservative analysis and Marcuse's left-wing analysis, both centering Americans as consumption-obssessed, etc., but conservatives embraced Hartz and critiqued Marcuse as too simplistic—Hartz wanted things to stay this way whilst Marcuse wanted to change them. He makes an absurd claim on the positive role of "public authority" in the wake of 9/11 that makes me wonder whether he had read the news since 9/10.
The conclusion, written by Ira Katznelson, is a critique of the APD method due to its limited methodological nature and general ignorance of international developments and affairs. He attempts to correct portions of Kloppenberg's thesis, but overcorrects in a generous definition of liberalism that synonymizes it with progressivism.
The first chapter, "Explaining the Unexplainable" by Joanne B. Freedman, seeks to demonstrate the historical and cultural-political context of the infamous Alien and Sedition Act passed under the Adams Administration in response to conflict with France and to suppress the "radical" Democratic-Republicans. Freedman emphasizes the complex and contradictory nature of both the Federalist and D-R political coalitions and the use of "honor" as a social construct that was fundamental to one's political power. Most interesting is the use of the case of Thomas Cooper and his attempted prosecution of the Federalist Alexander Hamilton under the Act as well as Freedman's highlighting of the Democratic-Republican's own use of tactics similar to the Sedition Act under the Jefferson Administration.
Reinhold R. John's "Affairs of Office" challenges the traditional narrative surrounding Jackson's victory in the presidential election of 1828 and the supposed inauguration of spoils patronage thereafter. Instead, John contends that federal executive departments were already being utilized as political machines by cabinet heads such as Henry Clay, that Adams refused to utilize this to his advantage in the 1828 election, and that the truly "new" part of the spoils system was that Jackson used it in a partisan manner to ensure a stable coalition of the middle and lower-class in the North that would unite politically with the slaveholders and yeoman farmers who made up the southern Democratic Party. Another, perhaps most interesting part of John's thesis, is his contention that Jackson and the Democratic Party switched to an "antidevelopmental agenda" to ensure the weakness of the organizational capabilities of the central government in an attempt to ensure the victory of anti-abolitionism.
William J. North's "The Legal Transformation of Citizenship in 19th Century America" focuses on the concept of citizenship in U.S. legal history, and how the concept was not truly employed under the latter half of the 19th century, particularly after the Reconstruction Amendments. Before this, as proved by the wording of the Dred Scott decision, "citizenship" and "residency" generally meant the same thing as long as one was considered white—this has important implications in supporting the scholarship of radical historians such as Gerald Horne.
Michael Vorenberg's "Bringing the Constitution Back In" discusses the "static" nature of the U.S. Constitution until around 1864, upon which many sectors of American society recognized the utility and possibility of constitutional amendment as a method for reform.
Sven Beckert's "Democracy in the Age of Capital" focuses on a particular incident in the history of New York—an attempted restriction of municipal suffrage to the emerging bourgeoisie in an attempt to ensure the financial stability of the New York City government. Perhaps the most interesting article in the book, Beckert contends that this incident was "a decisive moment in the emergence of a self-conscious bourgeoisie." (147) However, he discusses the Marxist understanding of history in a poor way—he confuses the Marxist recognition of the bourgeoisie's capacity for progressive political action in early revolutionary situations for a universalized progressivism in which the bourgeoisie should have always pushed for universal suffrage, etc. This is a poor understanding of the Marxist position.
Rebecca Edwards' "Domesticity versus Manhood Rights" challenges the common contention that the Democratic and Republican parties were ideologically homogeneous during the Gilded Age. Instead, she sees in the Republican Party a "domestic ideology" which sought to implement support systems and social control in favor of the era's understanding of the family, whilst the Democratic Party pushed an understanding of "manhood rights" which sought to limit the role of the state.
Michael Willrich's "The Case for Courts" examines the role of the Municipal Court of Chicago as a vector for Progressive Era reform in opposition to the traditional Progressive anti-courts stance. He makes good points, but I think he fails to see that the reason the Progressives were split on the courts were the very reforms he analyzes—the Progressives were not one-natured and often disagreed with one another. The fairly radical critiques of LaFollette and Charles Beard were attempting to solve issues fundamentally different than those of Taft.
Brian Balogh's "Mirrors of Desires" discusses Herbert Hoover's use of "interest group campaigning" and how his 1928 presidential campaign revolutionized the sectioning and division of American society into blocs which politicians appeal to individually through different means. Meg Jacobs' "Pocketbook Politics" analyzes the role of consumer politics from WWI to the post-WWII period, and how the consumer-labor alliance which was forged in the New Deal was lost through inflationary politics. Julian E. Zelizer's "The Uneasy Relationship" examines the role of resistance to federal taxation in American history,.
Thomas J. Sugrue's "All Politics is Local" demonstrates the centrality of localism in American liberalism, and how both the New Deal and Johnson's Great Society were forced to reckon with and ultimately bow to local politics whilst attempting reform. He notes the supremacy of "devolution" in the neoliberal era. Matthew D. Lassiter's "Suburban Strategies" is a fascinating article contesting the nature of the so-called "Southern Strategy." Lassiter contends that in the 1968 election, Nixon instead appealed to a moderate (white) conservative base centered in America's suburbs through anti-busing initiatives and in fact lost the 1970 midterm elections when the ultra-conservative Southern Strategy was genuinely implemented. Lassiter's article is perhaps the best of the bunch, and provides a very interesting read where interpreted from a Marxist lens—the installation of a petty bourgeois consciousness into the white working class (if it can be called that) through suburbanization. Sugrue loses me in the end when he quotes the neoliberal Tip O'Neill and championed "pragmatic liberalism." In my notes, I wrote: "historians from 2003 be like 'yes i am neoliberal, how can you tell?'"
Chapter 14, "From Hartz to Tocqueville," is James T. Kloppenberg's critique of Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition, and swings back and forth from very good to awful. Perhaps the most notable assertion is the similarity of Hartz's conservative analysis and Marcuse's left-wing analysis, both centering Americans as consumption-obssessed, etc., but conservatives embraced Hartz and critiqued Marcuse as too simplistic—Hartz wanted things to stay this way whilst Marcuse wanted to change them. He makes an absurd claim on the positive role of "public authority" in the wake of 9/11 that makes me wonder whether he had read the news since 9/10.
The conclusion, written by Ira Katznelson, is a critique of the APD method due to its limited methodological nature and general ignorance of international developments and affairs. He attempts to correct portions of Kloppenberg's thesis, but overcorrects in a generous definition of liberalism that synonymizes it with progressivism.
February 2, 2012
I enjoyed this book much more than Contesting Democracy. The articles were interesting and made me rethink some of the preconcieved notion that historians tend to have about the different times in American History. The first and last two chapters I felt did not fully link to book together. But overall the book was good.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews