Against the American State? Legitimacy and Reconfigurations.

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

An anti-government ideology has dominated domestic US politics since the Reagan presidency in the 1980s. It drives deregulation, opposition to federal enforcement of civil rights, relentless tax cuts and a revived ideology of individualism. This panel explains how this forceful opposition to state activism arose from the 1980s and the threat it poses to the legitimation of government power. Anti-statism includes reducing tax revenues, de-regulating public policy, stopping the race desegregation agenda, privatizing criminal justice, and largely eviscerating controls on how much unidentified donors can spend on election campaigns. Ideologically includes claims about the necessity for military power. Institutionally the anti-government ideology includes arguments about the bureaucracy and deep state, and the constitutional power implied by the unitary executive. Combined anti-government ideology and practices are reconfiguring the American state in federal government and posing a host of issues about state legitimacy. The papers on this panel address these issues in different ways.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Individual Presentations

• The Wars of Legitimacy: Social Movements and the Trump Election - Leah Wright-Rigueur, Harvard Kennedy School; Megan Ming Francis, University of Washington

• A Beleaguered Republic: The "Deep State" and the "Unitary Executive" - Stephen Skowronek, Yale University; John A. Dearborn, Vanderbilt University

• The War on Government. - Desmond King, University of Oxford

• The American State and the Limits of Public Policy - Jamila D. Michener, Cornell University

Chair

• Kimberley S. Johnson New York University

Discussant

• Didi Kuo Stanford University