Tales of the State Narrative in Contemporary U.S. Politics and Public Policy

by Schram, Sanford F.; Neisser, Philip T.; Best, Joel; Cruikshank, Barbara; Culverson, Donald R.; Daniels, R Scott; Fergerson, Gerard; Goldberg-Hiller, Jonathan; Green, Charles R.; Kling, Joseph; Krueger, Gary; Kurth-Schai, Ruthanne; Neisser, Phillip T.; Nit

• ISBN13: 9780847685028
• ISBN10: 0847685020
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-08-14
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

The relationship between politics and storytelling is one with a well-established lineage, but public policy analysis has only recently begun to develop its own appreciation of the power of narrative to explain everything from political traditions to cyberspace. This unique collection of original essays helps further that project by surveying stories of and about all kinds of American politics--from welfare, race, and immigration; to workfare, jobs, and education; to gay rights, national security, and the American Dream in an age of economic globalization.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(16)
Sanford F. Schram
Philip T. Neisser
Part I: Origin Stories	17	(36)
1 Winning the West, Unwelcoming the Immigrant: Alternative Stories of "America"	17	(10)
Michael J. Shapiro
2 Constitutional Tales: Capitalist Origin Stories and U.S. Democracy	27	(12)
Carl Swidorski
3 Pluralizing the American Dream	39	(14)
Miriam B. Rosenthal
Sanford F. Schram
Part II: Institutions, Actors, and Narratives	53	(36)
4 The Storyteller in Chief: Why Presidents Like to Tell Tales	53	(10)
John Kenneth White
5 The Cycle of Representation: The House Republicans and the Contract with America	63	(13)
Sanford F. Schram
6 Native Son: Stories of Self-Creation in the Judicial Politics of Clarence Thomas	76	(13)
Leslie J. Vaughan
Part III: Identity Stories in Public Policy	89	(50)
7 Talking Straight: Narrating the Political Economy of Gay Rights	89	(13)
Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller
8 "It's Not Just Naked Women"--Regulating Transgressive Identities in Cyberspace	102	(11)
R. Scott Daniels
9 Welfare Queens: Policing by the Numbers	113	(12)
Barbara Cruikshank
10 Tales of Black Criminality: Racial Determinism and Fatal Narratives	125	(14)
Gerard Fergerson
Part IV: Tales of Domestic Policy	139	(60)
11 Welfare Migration as a Policy Rumor: A Statistical Accounting	139	(11)
Sanford F. Schram
Lawrence Nitz
Gary Krueger
12 Tales of the City: The Secret Life of Devolution	150	(13)
Joseph Kling
13 The Entrepreneurial Gloss: The Myth of Small Business Job Growth	163	(11)
Phillip H. Sandro
14 The Vanishing White Man: Workforce 2000 and Tales of Demographic Transformation	174	(10)
Joel Best
15 Schooling Stories: Three Paths, Two Tragedies, One Vision	184	(15)
Ruthanne Kurth-Schai
Charles R. Green
Part V: Tales of Global Policy	199	(43)
16 Rumors of Apartheid: Myth and Stereotype in U.S. Foreign Policy Toward South Africa	199	(13)
Donald R. Culverson
17 National Security Tales and the End of the Cold War	212	(11)
Joseph Peschek
18 NAFTA Discourse: Tales of Sovereignty, Science, and Adjustment	223	(11)
Philip T. Neisser
19 Is It Global Economics or Neo-Laissez-Faire?	234	(8)
Frances Fox Piven
References	242	(23)
Index	265	(4)
About the Contributors	269