Reagan’s New Federalism and the Rise of Neoconservative Urban Policy

• In Event: The American State's Retreat from Civil Rights

Abstract

The Civil Rights State that was created out of the modern civil rights movement had both symbolic as well as substantive elements. The latter was comprised of public policies that provided material opportunities for formally excluded racial groups to achieve greater social and economic empowerment. This paper argues that Reagan’s New Federalism brought to an end the substantive Civil Rights State, while keeping intact the symbolic elements of the Civil Rights state. The dichotomy between symbolism and substance can be seen the rise and then decline of “black mayors” [and urban regimes] who went from being seen as the policy solution of black empowerment to being portrayed as cause of [black] urban pathology and decline. By limiting the policy options of black mayors and casting these limited options as policy failure and ineffective governance, opponents of the Civil Rights State could argue that the only solution to these failures in governance was the imposition of neoconservative “color-blind” urban policy. This neoconservative urbanism would form one of the foundations of today's neoliberal city

Author

• Kimberley S. Johnson, New York University