Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T17:12:00.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Federalism, State Action, and “Critical Episodes” in the Growth of American Government

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Ballard C. Campbell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The publication of Robert Higgs’s Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government (1987) has interested students of the expansion of governmental activity. Despite a large literature on the growth of the public sector, Crisis is one of the few book-length historical accounts of the subject for the United States (Larkey et al. 1984). In this respect, Higgs’s study resembles Stephen Skowronek’s Building a New American State (1982), which also examined the historical transformation of government, albeit within a limited temporal perspective (1877–1920), and which like Crisis encased the story within a distinct theoretical framework. Skowronek argued that expansion of the public sector depended on the reconstruction of national administrative capability during the Progressive era. Higgs contended that major crises in American life functioned as the catalyst of “Big Government.” Although each author emphasized different dynamics propelling growth, both held that temporally specific disjunctures in governmental history date the emergence of the modern state. Higgs and Skowronek share one other similarity: neither of them adequately integrated federalism or the states into their analyses. Omission of these critical dimensions of the American polity raises questions about the utility of their research designs and the accuracy of their conclusions.

Type
Politics
Information
Social Science History , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , Winter 1992 , pp. 561 - 577
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1992 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beer, Samuel (1973) “The modernization of American federalism.” Publius 3:49–95.Google Scholar
The Book of the States (1935-) Lexington, KY: Council of State Governments.Google Scholar
Boston (annual) Report of the City Auditor of the Receipts and Expenditures of the City of Boston.Google Scholar
Brock, William R. (1984) Investigation and Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bullock, Charles J. (1907) Historical Sketch of the Finances and Financial Policy of Massachusetts from 1780 to 1905. New York: American Economic Association.Google Scholar
Callcott, Mary S. (1932) Principles of Social Legislation. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Campbell, Ballard C. (1980) Representative Democracy: Public Policy and Midwestern Legislatures in the Late Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Ballard C. (1983) “American governmental history versus the college textbooks.” Paper presented to the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Cincinnati, OH, April 9.Google Scholar
Campbell, Ballard C. (1993) “Federalism and American Legislatures,” in Silbey, Joel (ed.) Encyclopedia of the American Legislative System. New York: Scribners.Google Scholar
Clausen, Aage R. (1973) How Congressmen Decide: A Policy Focus. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Cochran, Thomas C. (1948) “The ‘presidential synthesis’ in American history.” American Historical Review 53:748–59.Google Scholar
Commons, John R. (1935) History of Labor in the United States. Vol. 3: 1896–1932. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Corwin, Edwin S. (1950) “The passing of dual federalism.” Virginia Law Review 36:1–24.Google Scholar
Cushman, Robert E. (1941) The Independent Regulatory Commissions. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cyclopedia of American Government (1914) McLaughlin, Andrew C. and Hart, Albert B., eds. New York: Appleton and Co. 3 vols.Google Scholar
Davis, Lance, and Legler, John (1966) “The government in the American economy, 1815–1902: A quantitative study.” Journal of Economic History 26:514–52.Google Scholar
Dawson, Richard E. (1967) “Social development, party competition, and policy,” in Chambers, William N. and Burnham, Walter D. (eds.) The American Party Systems. New York: Oxford University Press: 203–37.Google Scholar
Dye, Thomas R. (1966) Politics, Economics, and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Dye, Thomas R. (1979) “Politics versus economics: The development of the literature on policy determination.” Policy Studies Journal 7:652–62.Google Scholar
Elazar, Daniel J. (1972) American Federalism: A View from the States. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Fine, Sidney (1956) Laissez Faire and the General Welfare State. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M. (1973) A History of American Law. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Graves, W. Brooke (1946) American State Government. 1st ed.; 1936. Boston: D.C. Heath.Google Scholar
Graves, W. Brooke (1964) American Intergovernmental Relations. New York: Scribners.Google Scholar
Hale, George E., and Palley, Marian L. (1981) The Politics of Federal Grants. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Carl V. (1977) Political Power in Birmingham, 1871–1921. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Higgs, Robert (1987) Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hofferbert, Richard I. (1974) The Study of Public Policy. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Holt, Charles F. (1977) The Role of State Government in the Nineteenth Century American Economy, 1820–1902. New York: Arno Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, Jonathan R. T. (1977) The Governmental Habit. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Illinois Blue Book, 1929–1930 (1930) Springfield, IL: Office of Secretary of State.Google Scholar
Josephson, Matthew (1938) The Politicos. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.Google Scholar
Keller, Morton (1977) Affairs of State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, Morton (1990) Regulating a New Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kettl, Donald F. (1988) The Regulation of American Federalism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Larkey, Patrick, Stolp, C., Winner, M. (1984) “Why does government grow?” in Miller, Trudi C. (ed.) Public Sector Performance. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. (1964) “American business, public policy, case studies, and political theory.” World Politics 16:677–715.Google Scholar
May, James (1989) “Antitrust practice and procedure in the formative era: The constitutional and conceptual reach of state antitrust law, 1880–1918.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 135:495–593.Google Scholar
New York State Constitutional Convention Committee (1938) State and Local Government in New York. Albany: Constitutional Convention Committee.Google Scholar
Redford, Emmette S. (1965) American Government and the Economy. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Riker, William L. (1964) Federalism. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Robertson, David B., and Judd, Dennis R. (1989) The Development of American Public Policy. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.Google Scholar
Savage, Robert L. (1978) “Policy innovativeness as a trait of American states.” Journal of Politics 40:212–24.Google Scholar
Scheiber, Harry N. (1978) “American federalism and the diffusion of power: Historical and contemporary perspectives.” University of Toledo Law Review 9:619–80.Google Scholar
Skowronek, Stephen (1982) Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1887–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stephens, G. Ross (1974) “State centralization and the erosion of local autonomy.” Journal of Politics 36:44–76.Google Scholar
Studenski, Paul, and Krooss, Herman E. (1963) Financial History of the United States. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Sylla, Richard (1986) “Long-run trends in state and local finance: Sources and uses of funds in North Carolina, 1800–1977,” in Engerman, Stanley L. and Gallman, Robert E. (eds.) Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 819–68.Google Scholar
Teaford, Jon C. (1984) The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870–1900. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Urofsky, Melvin I. (1985) “State courts and protective legislation during the Progressive era: A reevaluation.” Journal of American History 72:63–91.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1884) Tenth Census of the United States, Report on Valuation, Taxation, and Public Indebtedness. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1895) Eleventh Census of the U.S., Report on Wealth, Debt, and Taxation. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1916, 1931) Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1975) Historical Statistics of the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1979) Historical Statistics on Governmental Finances and Employment. Vol. 6, 1977 Census of Governments. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Walker, David B. (1981) Toward a Functioning Federalism. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop.Google Scholar
Walker, David B. (1991) “American federalism from Johnson to Bush.” Publius 21:105–19.Google Scholar
Walker, Jack L. (1969) “The diffusion of innovations among the American states.” American Political Science Review 63:880–99.Google Scholar
White, Leonard D. (1933) Trends in Public Administration. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Wright, Deil S. (1978) Understanding Intergovernmental Relations. North Scituate, MA: Duxbury Press.Google Scholar
Yount, Hubert W., and Sherburne, Ruth E. (1929) The Cost of Government in Massachusetts, 1910–1926. Amherst: Agricultural Experiment Bulletin no. 256.Google Scholar