Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T06:23:37.117Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Bridging State and Society

The Origins of 1970s Congressional Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Extract

Congressional scholars have a unique opportunity to reconnect the histories of American state and society, a task central to the new generation of political historians. As MarkLeff (1995:852) recently argued, social and political historians have come to realize that they “ignored the other at their peril” and that “interaction was the only way to interrogate power—how it was structured and changed, where it was contested, how it was exerted, what its impact was, and what assumptions shaped the discourse that framed it” (see also Gillon 1997).To accomplish the challenge of integrating social and political history, congressional historians will have to examine how the institution’s development related to external forces. Much of what has been written about Congress thus far remains insular.

A handful of books published in the past two decades suggest how integration can be accomplished. In Sectionalism and American Political Development 1880–1980, Richard Bensel (1984) situates the internal development of Congress within the larger context of sectional tensions between the “industrial northern core” and the “underdeveloped southern and western periphery.” He pays close attention to key policy decisions and the ongoing struggle between decentralized committee and centralized partisan power to show the influence of sectionalism.

Type
Roundtable: The U.S. Congress in the Twentieth Century
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2000 

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

Adler, Scott E. (1996) “Changing the rules of the game: Distributive, informational, and partisan approaches to congressional reform.Ph.D. diss., Columbia University.Google Scholar
Allen, Craig (1993) Eisenhower and the Mass Media: Peace, Prosperity, and Prime–Time TV. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Alt, James E. (1994) “The impact of the Voting Rights Act on black and white voter registration in the South,” in Chandler Davidson and Bernard Goffman (eds.) Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–1990. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 351–77.Google Scholar
Bean, Jonathan J. (1996) Beyond the Broker State: Federal Policies toward Small Business, 1936–1961. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Bensel, Richard (1984) Sectionalism and American Political Development, 1880–1980. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Berkowitz, Edward D. (1995) “Social Security and the Financing of the American State,” in W. Elliot Brownlee (ed.) Funding the Modern American State, 1941–1995: The Rise and Fall of the Era of Easy Finance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Washington,DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press: 148–93.Google Scholar
Berkowitz, Edward D. (1996) Mr. Social Security: The Life of Wilbur J. Cohen. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Bernhard, Nancy E. (1999) U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Common Cause Papers, Princeton University (1970)Gardner, John, to Members. Box 10. File: Early CC Misc. Memos September–December 1970.Google Scholar
Common Cause Papers, Princeton University (1972) Congressional Reform. Box 30. File: September 1970–January 1972.Google Scholar
Common Cause Papers, Princeton University (1975) Governing Board minutes January 23–24, 1975. Box 32. File: 24 January–April 1975.Google Scholar
Cook, Timothy E. (1998) Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Roger H., and Oleszek, Walter (1979) Congress against Itself. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Roger H., Kovenock, David M., and O’Leary, Michael K. (1966) Congress in Crisis: Politics and Congressional Reform. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Democratic Study Group Papers, Library of Congress (1970). Secrecy in the House of Representatives. Box 34. Unfiled.Google Scholar
Gillon, Steven M. (1997) “The future of political history.Journal of Policy History 9: 240–55.Google Scholar
Grazia, Alfred de (ed.) (1966) Congress: The First Branch of Government. Garden City, NY: Anchor.Google Scholar
Leff, Mark H. (1995) “Revisioning U.S. political history.American Historical Review 100: 848–53.Google Scholar
Mike Monroney Papers, Carl Albert Center, University of Oklahoma (1964a). Progress Report to the Advisory Committee. Box 1. Folder 2.Google Scholar
Mike Monroney Papers, Carl Albert Center, University of Oklahoma (1964b). “Huitt, Ralph to Monroney, Mike.” Box 1. Folder 2.Google Scholar
Milazzo, Paul C. (forthcoming) “Legislating the solution to pollution: The evolution of federal water pollution policy in Congress, 1945–1975.Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia.Google Scholar
Milkis, Sidney M. (1998) “Remaking government institutions in the 1970s: Participatory democracy and the triumph of administrative politics.Journal of Policy History 10: 51–74.Google Scholar
Patterson, James T. (1967) Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, 1933–1939. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.Google Scholar
Pearson, Drew, and Anderson, Jack (1966a)“Dodd aid to foreign agent cited.” Washington Post, 29 January.Google Scholar
Pearson, Drew, and Anderson, Jack (1966b). “Klein wrote letters for Dodd.” Washington Post, 18 February.Google Scholar
Pearson, Drew, and Anderson, Jack (1966c). “Spanel pushed by Dodd as envoy.” Washington Post, 1 March.Google Scholar
Pearson, Drew, and Anderson, Jack (1966d). “Dodd started campaign in’61.” Washington Post, 25 March.Google Scholar
Polsby, Nelson W. (1990) “Political change and the character of the contemporary Congress,” in Anthony King (ed.) The New American Political System. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute: 29–46.Google Scholar
Rhode, David W. (1991) Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Riselbach, Leroy (1986) Congressional Reform. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Ross, Dorothy (1991) The Origins of American Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sabato, Larry J. (1991) Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Schulman, Bruce J. (1991) From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938–1980. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shafer, Byron (1983) The Quiet Revolution: The Struggle for the Democratic Party and the Shaping of Post–Reform Politics. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Silbey, Joel (1999) “The state and practice of American political history at the millennium: The nineteenth century as a test case.Journal of Policy History 11: 1–30.Google Scholar
Sinclair, Barbara (1989) The Transformation of the U.S. Senate. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Sinclair, Barbara (1997) Unorthodox Lawmaking: New Legislative Processes in the U.S. Congress. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly.Google Scholar
Smith, Steven S. and Deering, Christopher J. (1990)Committees in Congress, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Sparrow, Bartholomew H. (1999) Uncertain Guardians: The News Media as a Political Institution. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Strahan, Randall (1990) New Ways and Means: Reform and Change in Congressional Committee. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Washington Post (1973) Charge! (cartoon), 4 February.Google Scholar
Zelizer, Julian E. (1998). Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945–1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zelizer, Julian E. (1999). “The constructive generation: Thinking about Congress in the 1960s.” Mid-America: A Historical Review.Google Scholar