Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface to the Second Edition -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- 1 Some Introductory Thoughts On the American Welfare State -- Some Thoughts On Policymaking -- Federal Policymaking Is Not Unitary -- Federalism -- Cultural Factors Shaping the Social Safety Net -- The Culture of Work -- Race and Poverty -- Children -- Public-Private Partnerships -- Poverty -- Final Thoughts -- Notes -- 2 Income Assistance -- Unemployment Insurance -- Trade Adjustment Assistance -- Workers' Compensation -- Benefits to Disabled Veterans -- Earned Income Tax Credit and Earned Income Credit -- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families -- CalWORKs -- Calculating Income -- Calculating Benefits -- Calculating Income for the Purposes of Determining Benefits -- California Welfare to Work -- Cal-Learn -- California Tribal TANF Program -- General Relief -- TANF in Other States -- TANF in Texas -- Texas Choices Program -- TANF Summary -- Texas Veterans Leadership Program -- Head Start -- Supplemental Security Income -- Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants -- Social Security Disability Insurance -- Massachusetts Emergency Aid to Elderly, Disabled and Children -- Massachusetts 115 Benefits (Formerly Called "Veterans' Services") -- Childcare -- Massachusetts DTA Childcare -- Income-Eligible Child Care -- Massachusetts Homeless Child Care -- TANF Child Support -- The Income Support Dilemma -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 3 Housing Assistance -- Tenant-Based Voucher Programs -- Housing Choice Voucher Program ("Section 8") -- Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program (MRVP) -- Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) -- The Section 8/HCVP Family Self-Sufficiency Program -- Programs That Support Independence and Home Ownership.

Through a practical introduction to the policies of the American welfare state--a wide-ranging subject much discussed but seldom described--this concise volume details the four main areas of social welfare policy: housing assistance, nutrition assistance, income assistance, and medical assistance. In plain, approachable language, author Brian J.Glenn explains, for example, how Section 8 housing vouchers function, what the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is, how Medicare has developed, and what Temporary Aid for Needy Families does. Especially in the era of Covid-19 and a recession, there is a need for citizens and students to understand the American social safety net. The American Welfare State is written in a manner that allows a complete novice to understand these programs in a brisk and comprehensive fashion that is both short enough to read over a couple of nights in a course and yet detailed enough for the programs to be understood at quite a nuanced level. In this thoroughly updated second edition, author Brian J. Glenn outlines the ways in which social welfare programs differ, sometimes dramatically, from locality to locality. To help students understand how these policies function, Glenn looks at the support households receive in five cities: Boston, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. This approach provides not only a geographic spread but also an examination of the variability of support, giving the reader a feel for the range of funding levels and also the variety of ways programs can be implemented. In short, this book is a fully updated and handy teaching and learning tool that fills a huge gap in the literature on a subject that many want to teach but often lack the resources to do.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America, the book remains more controversial than ever. As Philip Abbott has recently catalogued, the book has been attacked from literally every direction possible. Sean Wilentz summarizes the feelings of many when he argues that Hartz should be forgotten, or at best considered "a figure of historical interest." Hartz has been accused of being loose with the facts, inappropriate in comparing America to continental Europe, and blind to other perspectives such as race or morality. Even those who take him seriously argue his theory is anything but a complete explanation of American political development and thought, but rather one that at best represents a mere slice of America's "multiple traditions." Finally, of course, there is a very large and influential school of American political development that argues ideas have very little role at all in explaining politics, and for adherents to this way of thinking, Hartz is simply irrelevant. For many members of the American political development scholarly community, there is simply no room left for taking Hartz's thesis seriously any more, if there ever was.

In this article, the author discusses Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America as a classic study in American political development. The author argues that Hartz' focus on the central role of liberalism did produce a unified theory of American political development, & the multiple approach methodology is argued to be valuable in political science. The premise that the unique hold that liberalism has on America is due to the lack of feudalism can be used by American political development students learning to question references, & the use of intersubjectivity & importance of context, & the validity of claimsmaking. The author concludes that the work offers students the concept of an ongoing dialogue & methodological insights into the nature of American liberalism & its relationship to American political development. J. Harwell

Political scientists working in the area of American political development (APD) focus on America's political history with the goal of explaining why the nation's often peculiar collection of institutions and policies grew the way they did. Two primary approaches or schools of inquiry shape much APD scholarship, though a great deal of very fine work falls outside of them: historical institutionalists study actors pursuing interests through a political arena bounded by institutions; and ideational scholars, in contrast, seek to understand how norms, narratives, and outlooks influence the framing of debates and their outcomes. Although there are exceptions, especially at the margins, each school is marked by a general outlook. Previous discussions of the two schools have focused on the place of culture and ideas in relation to institutions. I argue here that the two schools split along more fundamental lines, and suggest that the crucial distinction between them centers on the nature of causation and on an often-unstated understanding of what political development is. By mapping out the theoretical underpinnings of each, APD's methods can be introduced to researchers outside the subfield. And the question of how the two schools might be drawn together for even more powerful inquiry can be posed.