A Political History of the American Welfare System When Ideas Have Consequences

by O'Connor, Brendon

• ISBN13: 9780742526679
• ISBN10: 0742526674
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-14
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

How did American welfare policy move from the ambitious and altruistic goals of LBJ's Great Society of the 1960s to the punitive and penurious provisions of the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996? This book explores the power of ideology and rhetoric in the transformation of the American liberal welfare state. Based on historical analysis, detailed public policy critique, and original interview data, the story that unfolds is one of both personality and politics. Author Brendon O'Connor places the American welfare policy debate in wider perspective, showing how America's particular use of ideas and conceptions of economics and politics worked to reshape the national perception of poverty, morality, and economic responsibility over time.

Author Biography

Brendon O'Connor is a lecturer in the School of Politics and Public Policy at Griffith University in Australia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(18)
Part I: The Liberal Welfare System
Liberalism and Welfare: The Ideological and Political Roots of the American Welfare System	19	(30)
The Liberal Consensus and the Great Society	49	(22)
The Seeds of Doom for Liberalism	71	(22)
Part II: The Conservative Attack on Welfare Liberalism
The Neoconservatives	93	(18)
Reagan's Conservatives: The Supply-Siders, George Gilder, and Charles Murray	111	(26)
The New Right	137	(20)
A Populist Backlash?	157	(28)
Part III: The Emergence of a Conservative Welfare System
Bill Clinton's Third Way Welfare Politics: Innovation, Compromise, and Capitulation	185	(20)
Newt Gingrich, the Contract with America, and Justifying the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996	205	(18)
Conservative Welfare Policy in Practice	223	(16)
Conclusion	239	(6)
Postscript 2002	245	(14)
Bibliography	259	(26)
Index	285	(8)
About the Author	293