American Exceptionalism Reconsidered:
Culture or Institutions?
Sven Steinmo
University of Colorado, Boulder
[The final version of this essay was published in: Larry Dodd and Calvin Jillson (eds.)
The Dynamics of American Politics: Approaches and Interpretations. Boulder: Westview Press, (1994)]
America is one of the world's richest nations, yet its government takes a smaller percentage of this wealth than does any other democratic government in the world. I believe that the most obvious and common explanation for America's exceptionally small state - that we have a uniquely individualistic political culture - is wrong. It is clearly true that the rhetoric and symbolism of individualism is particularly strong in America. It is also true that Americans are increasingly skeptical of their public institutions. I do not think, however, that these values and attitudes explain the size and structure of America's welfare state.
This paper will present an institutionalist explanation for this country's small welfare state. I will suggest
that the fragmentation of political power in America biases the political system in favor of certain kinds of interests
and strategies, while it disadvantages others. This fragmentation profoundly shapes who can effectively participate
in politics, how they must be organized, what is possible to achieve irrespective of our ideologies or values. I
argue further, that the fragmentation of power and authority has stripped our political system of efficacy. When
American governments do act, they too often act badly. In short, Americans have come to distrust their
government because it doesn't work very well.
Political Culture as an Explanatory Variable
The cultural explanation for American exceptionalism is both plausible and logical: America is a country founded by immigrants who sought to escape oppressive governments. These people, moreover, were the most individualistic and entrepreneurial of the societies from which they left. Thus America was built on anti-statist beliefs and attitudes, an unwillingness to defer to authority, and an emphasis on liberal freedoms and values. Due to these political-cultural assumptions, Americans are simply more individualistic, resistant to accept state intervention in their society and unwilling to let the government step in the way of the private market. In short, "The state plays a more limited role in America than elsewhere because Americans, more than other people, want it to play a limited role" (King, 1974:418).
I believe, however, that using political culture as an explanatory variable poses several thorny analytic issues. First, political cultural explanations tend to be highly static. The power of this theory lies in large part in its elegance... America is different because it has always been different. But, while this simplicity makes an intuitively appealing explanation, it also leaves much to be explained. First, the liberal traditions explanation fails to either explain or account for political change. Secondly, in that political cultures consist of a mix of often contradictory or competing ideas and values, culturalists fail to provide a convincing explanation for why certain parts of the political culture become dominant in certain times or policy arenas, while others are more prominent elsewhere. Finally, proponents of this approach tend to be quite vague about the causal mechanisms at work when evoking political culture as an independent variable. It is not enough to know that Americans hold different beliefs or world views than other peoples, we also need to understand how these beliefs are translated into real policy choices. Given all these problems, perhaps we should not be surprised that political culture can be used to explain an enormous variety of different outcomes (Elkins and Simeon, 1979).
This paper argue that these flaws, when added together, force us to reject political culture as an explanation for American exceptionalism. I will instead suggest that the institutionalist approach provides a more compelling account for the exceptional character of American politics and policies. I will not argue that American political culture is the same as that of other industrialized democracies; rather, I suggest that cultural differences do not provide an adequate explanation or political differences between nations. An institutional account, in contrast, can explain both how and why particular policies are chosen at particular moments in political history as well as show why certain patterns tend to persist within nations over time.
Cultural Change
The static quality of the Liberal Exceptionalism explanation is in some ways quite surprising given the historical emphasis and analytic traditions of the central proponents of this argument. Still, as it is normally conceived, the Liberal Traditions argument is profoundly ahistorical. The argument is essentially that the United States began with a liberal political culture and that the ideas ensconced at this time continue to shape political debate and public policy today. As I suggested above, this explanation can be intuitively quite appealing. But if we begin to think through the analytic logic of this explanation we are forced to question the mechanisms supposedly at work here. What is the mechanism for the transmission and continuation of a political culture? Culturalists do not, of course, simply argue that each generation simply passes down a set of fixed beliefs to the next. Their argument is substantially more sophisticated. In one of the most interesting attempts to defend culturalist theory against charges that it is too static,(1) Harry Ekstein tells us:
Culturalists proceed from a postulate of "cumulative" socialization. This means two things. First, although learning is regarded as continuous throughout life (which is not likely to be questioned) early learning -- all prior learning -- is regarded as sort of filter for later learning: early learning conditions later learning and is harder to undo. Second, a tendency is assumed toward making the bits and pieces of cognitive, affective, and evaluative learning form a coherent (consistent, consonant) whole (Ekstein, 1988:791).
In short, what we learn from our family and what we learn in our early years growing up profoundly shapes our perceptions of the world and our understanding of our life experiences later life. Thus, basic values and attitudes about things like self-reliance, individuality and respect/deference to authority are learned early in life and can act as filters through which we interpret our world as adults. Precisely because these cultural values are general and not specific interpretations, they can be handed down from one generation to the next.
The continuity suggested in this explanation is at once appealing and suspicious. Is it reasonable to expect that these basic interpretive filters are handed down through multiple generations without being adapted, changed or even fundamentally altered over the course of history.(2) Explicitly recognizing this weakness in cultural theory, Ronald Inglehart's most recent book, Cultural Shift, examines changes in political culture in post-industrial society. Not only does he discover that cultures do change, but he also suggests a mechanism which should make us rethink the static quality of the Liberal exceptionalism argument. He tells us that while generational learning is clearly important, "But a people's world view does not depend solely on what their elders teach them; rather it is shaped by their entire life experience, and sometimes the formative experiences of a younger generation differ profoundly from those of previous generations" (Inglehart, 1990:4).
The point here is that values, culture and attitudes change with experience. Thus, it cannot be enough to say that America is a nation founded on set of liberal values and therefore we hold those values today (and therefore we have a small welfare state). To the extent that we find strong liberal/individualistic tenets in American political culture in the late twentieth century one needs to explain more than their origins. We need to also understand what it is about the American experience that has encouraged Americans to reinterpret these general values into anti-statist policy preferences.
Which Values? Whose Values?
Any nation's political culture obviously contains a mix of different values, beliefs, attitudes etc.. Martin Lipset, one of this countries most astute students of American political culture depicts this culture as follows: "The United States is organized around an ideology which includes a set of dogmas about the nature of a good society... That ideology can be subsumed in four words: anti-statism, individualism, populism, and egalitarianism" (Lipset, 1991:16). The conflicts between the constituent parts of American political culture present several problems for culturalist explanation. First, as Russell Hanson points out in this volume, in a country as large and diverse as the United States, different values can appear dominant in different parts of the country at different points in history. Hanson's essay very convincingly shows us that American Social Security policy was not the product of the predominance of Liberal values in the U.S., but instead was more reflective of traditionalist values of a particular segment of American society. Citing Pivan and Cloward "the South was nothing less than triumphant in shaping the nation's social welfare policy" Hanson reminds us to ask the question "Whose values?" even if we accept the power of values in an explanatory model (cited in Hanson, 1993:35).
In my view, this problematic represents the tip of and intellectual iceberg for culturalist theory. As Hanson shows, all complex polities consist of different people with different values, orientations and ways of interpreting the world. The U.S. in particular presents a confusing and complex conglomeration of cultures. Even to the extent that it is now true as Thompson et. al. (1990) have recently suggested, that the American polity is dominated by "individualists" and those who hold the competing hierarchical or communitarian cultures are subordinate; the question is why? If there are competing cultural interpretations of the world even within the United States what explains the fact that one culture is dominant? In other words one could agree that values etc. are important for politics, but still question why a particular set of values appears to be winning.
The majority of those analysts who have examined American political culture have specifically argued
that ours is a mixed bag. In their superb empirical examination of American public values, The American Ethos,
McClosky and Zaller argue that it is precisely the conflict between liberal and egalitarian values that defines
American political culture. It is worth citing their book at length:
However vital the roles of democracy and capitalism have been in American life, not all of the
values incorporated into the ethos are mutually consistent and harmonious. Value conflicts, after
all, are endemic to all complex societies, including the United States. Among the most important
of these, as we have suggested, are the conflicts that arise from the differing perspectives of the
two traditions. Capitalism is primarily concerned with maximizing private profit, while
democracy aims at maximizing freedom, equality, and the public good. From this difference,
others follow. Capitalism tends to value each individual according to the scarcity of his talents
and his contribution to production; democracy attributes unique but roughly equivalent value to
all people. Capitalism stresses the need for a reward system that encourages the most talented
and industrious individuals to earn and amass as much wealth as possible; democracy tries to
ensure that all people, even those who lack outstanding talents and initiative, can at least have a
decent livelihood. Capitalism holds that the free market is not only the most efficient but also the
fairest mechanism for distributing goods and services; democracy upholds the rights of popular
majorities to override market mechanisms when necessary to alleviate social and economic
distress (McClosky and Zaller, 1984:7).
It is simply not the case that all Americans have always shared a common liberal anti-state orientation. Indeed much of American history can and has been interpreted as a conflict over which set of values would hold force. To the extent that liberal or anti-state values or ideologies appear dominant at any point in time, we need to understand these as the products of powerful political struggles, not as if there were some massive, consistent and overwhelming consensus dictating these values and attitudes.(3)
In a fascinating recent article, Richard Ellis shows that even the teachings of John Locke can and have been interpreted in radically different ways throughout American history. He tells us, for example: "Locke's notion that laws should secure to each man the fruits of his labor can be harnessed to competing cultural visions. It can be used by individualists to justify the right of each man to keep what he has acquired, but it can also be employed by egalitarians to attack large concentrations of wealth on the grounds that such holdings are not derived from productive labor" (Ellis, 1992:827).
Thus, even if Lockean liberalism has held some kind of special place in the hearts and minds of
Americans, the substantive implications of these beliefs remain far from clear. Indeed, radical egalitarians from
Tom Paine to the Populists either echoed or directly borrowed from Locke's ideas on private property. "A Lockean
consensus on private property does not, in short translate into a consensus on a competitive individualist way of
life. That egalitarians in the United States only infrequently reject private property in favor of collective ownership
should not obscure the strength of egalitarianism in this country nor the often thoroughgoing nature of their
critique of competitive capitalism" (Ellis, 1992:844).
Can Culture Explain Policy?
Most culturalists readily agree that cultural predispositions are not clear or unambiguous guides to public policy.(4) Indeed, quite the contrary, "The values of the ethos, however, are not in themselves sufficient to determine policy. The values of capitalism and democracy, as usually stated, are too general and abstract, and too often in conflict with one another, to provide more than general guidance on specific issues" (McClosky and Zaller, 1984:12).
Early in the century national health insurance (NHI), for example, was widely defended with arguments quite similar to those used to support the extension of free public education: That it supported the vaunted American value of equal opportunity. The failure of the early versions of NHI had more to do with interstate competition, the medical industry's opposition, Congressional deadlock, and financial constraints, than to public preferences or values (Poen, 1979; Brown, 1979; Marmor, 1970). Only after an enormous public relations campaign financed by the AMA in the 1940s and 50s, did NHI become tagged with the un-American label "socialized medicine." This massively funded PR campaign worked. Since the late 1940s those who have labored for NHI have, in effect, been saddled with defending an "un-American" program, but one which is 'necessary anyway' (Marmor, 1970). In short, free public education succeeded and became as American as apple pie, while health care became associated with an intrusive state not because of fundamental differences in these two types of policies. Instead, private education did not have a wealthy and powerful organized interest group which could use the checks an balances of the American political system to veto this legislation.
If the ethos, ideology, values or political culture are vague and even contradictory guides to particular public policy outcomes, is it reasonable to argue that these are independent variables which can explain the peculiar nature and structure of the American welfare state as a whole? I think not.
In sum, while the liberal traditions argument is intuitively appealing, closer examination proves it
inadequate. In the following sections of this paper I will present an explanation for American exceptionalism
which in my view is substantially more convincing.
How Exceptional is America?
The first thing that we have to understand about the modern American welfare state is that it is not all that different from its European counterparts. We need to be conscious of this point else our explanations go afield by explaining too much. It is not the case the other democracies have created massive social welfare programs which have never been attempted or considered in the U.S.. It is not the case that other democratic governments intervene in the society or the economy in ways fundamentally different than the American government. It is not the case that other democratic states addresses problems that American governments simply ignore. It is instead the case the American governments (I mean to emphasize the plurality of governments in the United States) have taken a somewhat different approaches to public policy problems than most European governments. American governments tend to spend somewhat less, and do somewhat less, to address the social and economic problems faced in all advanced industrial nations.(5) American governments do provide public housing, public health, public education, and direct financial assistance to the poor, the aged, the disabled and the unemployed, but these programs tend to be less well funded(6) and less comprehensive than those typical in European countries.
It is also easy to overstate and oversimplify the differences between European and American public attitudes and preferences. Wile it is quite clear that Americans today hold a general distrust of their government, it is far from clear that this distrust has been consistent over time or that this distrust has always been greater in America than elsewhere. The Progressive era, the New Deal, and the 1960s are each examples of cases in which great masses of Americans rose demanding state intervention into the society and the economy. Moreover, it is far from clear that citizens of other democracies have the abiding and enduring trust of their states as is often implied by American scholars. Indeed, as recently as in the 1960s American's trust their government to do the right thing more often than citizens in most other democracies.
While Americans do hold more negative attitudes towards the general category "welfare" than is typical in
most European states (Coughlin, 1980), it not true that they oppose specific social welfare programs. To the
contrary, as the following tables demonstrates, when Americans are asked about specific social welfare programs,
the majority wants to see them expanded or maintained and do not favor cutting them back.
TABLE 1 GOES ABOUT HERE
Interestingly, as the table 2 indicates, the general proposition that citizens generally want to maintain but
not massively expand the particular social welfare programs the have at any given point in time holds for Swedes
as well as Americans.
TABLE 2 GOES ABOUT HERE
Perhaps Americans have opposed the introduction or expansion of social welfare programs in the past, where Europeans have historically demanded them. Once again, the data does not support this assumption. As Heclo (1974) detailed analysis of the development of social welfare programs Britain and Sweden has shown, these programs have been introduced in Europe by political and administrative elites in their efforts to solve particular public problems and were not the product of specific demands for particular programs or solutions.
The following table illustrates another dimension of this issue. It shows that for most of the past two
decades the majority of Swedish citizens has been opposed to the expansion of social assistance. In this period,
however, the Swedish welfare state has exploded -- to the point where it is widely regarded as the most generous
welfare state in the entire world. During this period public spending rose from less than 30% of GDP to more than
50% of GDP.
TABLE 3 GOES ABOUT HERE
The liberal traditions argument assumes that the differences in public output between European and the American welfare state is a product of fact that Americans want different policies than Europeans. But in fact there seems to be a very little linkage between public attitudes toward specific programs and program development. Even some culturalists admit this. "[T]he American mass public seems to differ hardly at all in this connection from mass publics of other countries. The evidence on this point is, for once, abundant... the state's comparatively limited provision of social services in the US is not readily attributable to differences in public opinion" King, 1974:412-3).
In sum, the American welfare state is somewhat different from most European states, but it is very difficult to attribute these differences to clear and consistent differences in public attitudes or preferences. Indeed, as many scholars have shown, there is only a weak connection between public attitudes and specific policy outputs. What then, can explain the differences in policy outputs?
My argument is that the unique constitutional structure established over two hundred years ago pushed
the U.S. towards a polity in which it has been exceedingly difficult to develop and maintain strong political parties,
a mass socialist or labor/left political movement, and comprehensive-universalistic social welfare policies typical in
European welfare states. The result of this institutional fragmentation has been the fragmentation of political
authority and responsibility on the one hand, and the proliferation of special interest politics on the other. America
has developed pluralist, even hyper-pluralist, system of policy making. This fragmented pluralist system and the
enormous political power it yields interest groups is the reason we have a relatively underdeveloped welfare state.
The Constitutional Foundations of American Exceptionalism
It is impossible to understand American society without seeing the formative influence of the
Constitution upon it.(Diamond, 1981:99)
The delegates from the 12 ex-colonies represented at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 were institutionalists. They believed that the institutional arrangements of a new union (if there was to be a union) would determine more than what kinds of interests would be advantaged or disadvantaged, but ultimately also what kind of society America should become. Martin Diamond eloquent analysis of the thinking behind the construction of the U.S. Constitution tells us the following: The word 'constitution' "derives from the Latin statuere which means to 'set up' in the sense of giving a thing its essential and peculiar nature... In the ancient tradition, a constitution establishes the fundamental nature or genius of a political system; that is, a constitution is a people's way of life. Thus it consists in the human ends towards which a particular system strives, both by virtue of its positive arrangements as well as by virtue of limits placed upon its rulers... And in these ways it shapes the very being of the society and forms the kinds of human beings who live there" (Diamond, 1981:99).
The elites who finally (albeit narrowly) agreed to the particular structure of the U.S. Constitution were thus ultimately agreeing to a vision of future citizens as well as a certain design for our political institutions. Drawing from the writings of Montesque and Locke, these writers viewed the good society as one with a limited state which would promote liberal values. Montesque was particularly interested in the formative capacity of institutions on human nature. Both Locke and Montesque believed that limited government was an ideal to be strived for because only limited government could secure the maximum degree of individual freedom "which was viewed as the highest human possibility" (Diamond, 1981:99).
Not all participants in the Convention, or for that matter activists in the subsequent debates over ratification, held identical philosophical positions. Quite the contrary, as many constitutional scholars have shown, there was very dramatic conflict over what kinds of institutions should be constructed... or in other words, there was deep conflict over what kind of society should be built (Main, 1962; Jillson, 1988; Beard, 1913; Smith, 1965). It is widely accepted, moreover, that the particular institutional structures finally agreed to were compromises between various interests (farmers vs. industrialists, big states vs. small states, etc.) as well as compromises over foundational ideas about what type of society America should become (liberal vs. communitarian, egalitarian vs. hierarchical etc.). We must remember however, that irrespective of the hallowed position our Constitution now holds in the hearts of Americans, it was not a tablet handed America from heaven and agreed to by acclamation by the whole of society.
Through a long series of hard fought compromises, the men at the Constitutional convention finally agreed to a system which was in Madison's words, "in strictness neither a national nor a federal constitution, but rather a composition of both" (Federalist, 39). The key compromise for the new republic was that it was to have a large nation with free trade between states, but at the same time political sovereignty would be constitutionally divided and national power would be severely limited. These basic compromises were not what either the Federalists or the Anti-Federalists had hoped for, but was the best compromise that these men could achieve given the very large divisions between them at the time. These compromises, however, had enormous implications for how this nation would adapt to the challenges of a modernizing society and economy more than a century later.
Adapting the Constitution to the Modern World
Nothing could have prepared either European or American political elites at the end of the 18th century for the huge social and economic changes that their countries would undergo in the next century and half. In this period, modernizing countries changed from being mostly rural and agricultural to increasingly urban and industrial societies. This modernization brought with it new demands for the expanded involvement of the state in society in all modernizing countries (Ashford, 1986; Rimlinger, 1971 ; Flora and Heidenheimer, 1977; Rueschmeyer, Stephens and Stephens, 1992; Wilensky, 1975).(7) In each case, these countries witnessed the growth of new ideas on the one hand, and the reconfiguration of the balance of power between economic classes on the other. "In each of these countries surveyed, there was a similar conflict, and each has its own way of managing the tensions created" (Rimlinger, 1971:85). In both Europe and America, middle and working class reformers demanded both more responsive political institutions and more efficient government. Political reform was necessary, reformers believed, in order that government could be transformed into a tool of social and economic progress.
To achieve these common ends, however, the specific reform strategies were forced to differ radically. Whereas in Europe, where national power was much more centralized and the right to vote had yet to be won, reformers organized themselves into strong programmatic political parties on the one hand, and large, politicized unions on the other. Here the aim was to gain the right to vote and then seize the reigns of national power.(8) In the U.S., with its large national economy, federal division of sovereignty, and male suffrage, reformers political strategies took quite a different turn. In this case, democratic reform meant undermining the power of democratic political elites. The following sections will examine exactly why these strategies differed in the ways that they did.
Weak Parties
Few would argue with the proposition that one of the central explanation for the laggardly development of the American welfare state is the fact that political parties in America are relatively non-programmatic, non-ideological and internally divided. In the absence of strong political parties, elected officials must to cater to local and/or highly particularistic constituency interests to an extent that is truly unique in the democratic world. Accommodating these interests often means going against the party, its elites, and even its stated goals and ideology. Indeed, even when a single political party nominally controls the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Presidency and the majority of state legislatures and governor's mansions across the county, there is almost no hope that the party will be able to legislate more than a fraction of its political commitments.
The question of course is why doesn't the United States have strong programmatic political parties, and why in particular didn't the U.S. develop a socialist party in late 19th century. Certainly there were socialist parties and no small measure of mass support for the Left in America in the later decades of the 19th century (Hofstadter, 1963; Bell, 1967; Greenstone, 1969). But for some reason these movements floundered on American shores, while succeeding throughout Europe.
The Liberal Traditions explanation argues that these movements failed in America because the did not appeal to the basic American ideology. Communism and socialism offered a vision of the good society which conflicted with American's vision of and for itself. The historical evidence, however, leads us to question this assertion. Indeed, historians of this era have shown that the it was far from the case that liberal ideology was hegemonic in this era (Hattam, 1992; Katznelson, ; Ross, 1991). Some have even argued that the weakness of socialism in the U.S. was due to the powerful socialistic tendencies already within American political culture. "[T]he country's image of itself contained so many socialist elements that one did not have to go to a separate movement opposed to the status quo in order to give vent to socialist emotions" (Harrington, 1972:118). Others have argued that it was America's fantastic wealth which limited the appeal of socialism, (Sombart,1905). While still others suggest that ethnic diversity and racism undermined class consciousness (Shalev and Korpi, 1980).
In my view, each of these may have played some role, but a more convincing explanation for the weakness of socialist political parties in the U.S., looks to the institutional context in into which the new political demands were filtered and shows how this contexts shaped both political organization and reform strategies.
In both Europe and America, the end of the 19th century marked an era of intense political conflict and demands for democratic reform. In Europe, where the franchise had yet to be extended beyond the land-holding elite, middle and working class activists built and mobilized around strong political parties in order to demand access and representation for the unenfranchised. European democratic reformers wanted to seize the reigns of power from the ruling elite. The best mechanism for doing this was to mobilize the workers and the middle class into coherent politicized organizations - political parties and labor unions (Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens, 1992).
The democratic problematic was different in the U.S.. In part because of the "free gift of suffrage" (Perlman, 1949, quoted in Lipset 1991:9) there was less to get the working class to mobilize around - to get them angry about.(9) But equally importantly, our constitutional structure had given local elites a power base quite apart from the national center (Wildavsky, 1979 ; Grodzins, 1979). The early extension of the franchise allowed local elites to use the patronage system to control their constituencies and control their members of Congress. Local elites were thus both well entrenched in democratic/electoral politics and major stalwarts against progressive reform and governmental activism.(10) This radically altered the task of democratic reformers. "[Reformers] hoped that people... would be filled with the desire to do something about corrupt bosses, sweated labor, civic decay, monopolistic extortion. If the people were sufficiently aroused, they would wrest power away from city and state bosses, millionaire senators, and other minions of invisible government and take it back into their own hands" (Hofstadter, 1963:5). Because of this basic decentralization of authority, in 19th century America, local elites and their party machines were seen as the central obstacles to reform.
In Europe political parties were perceived quite different by democratic reformers. Instead of being obstacles to democracy and governmental activism, mass political parties were seen as the major instruments to bring about democratic reform - to make the national government more responsive to their demands and interests.(11) It is also important to recognize that in both Europe and America, governmental reform was intimately tied to the belief that government should be used as an instrument of social and economic progress. Reformers believed that as long as the current elite held power, progress would be stifled. In short, these reformers believed that government could, would and should become "activist." "They believed that the people of the country should be stimulated to work enthusiastically to bring about social progress, that the positive powers of government must be used to achieve this end". The debate and strategies in America and Europe, then, were quite different, but the goals were not. "Conservatives generally believed in time and nature to bring about progress; Progressives believed in energy and governmental action" (Hofstadter, 1963:4-5).(12)
In America reformers pushed for and eventually won a large set of institutional reforms specifically designed to take power away from the current political elite and the parties that they controlled. Several attempts were made at organizing new political parties but the Democrats and Republicans proved to be adept at adopting many of reformers policy platforms and thus undermining their electoral appeal.(13) We must remember that the localization of power in the U.S. allowed the two standing parties to be malleable enough to adopt new reform positions. As a result, however, the two parties were colonized by reformers and in the end used as vehicles undermining the their own party elite. Among the most important institutional reforms introduced were the direct primary, the Australian ballot, recall elections, citizen initiatives on state ballots, voter registration reform and the direct election of U.S. senators (cf. Burnham, 1970).
In Europe, the democratic impulse had quite different effects. Rather than attempting to break the link between parties and government, reformers worked to mobilize the unenfranchised into new formed political parties that could then take over government. Since the vast majority of the public were excluded from the right to vote, the traditional parties could less easily absorb working and middle class interests and demands into their platforms. Democratic reformers, at the same time, saw the political potential in organizing separately from the small ruling elite then in power. Why join the enemy when you outnumber them ten to one? As working class parties grew and as the pressures for broadening the franchise mounted, it quickly became obvious that these parties would one day run the government.(14) In these cases reformers had no incentive to neuter political parties. Once their organizations were strong enough to seize power. Quite the contrary, they could easily see that they would soon be able to use this power to effect social and economic change.
In sum, democratic reformers in Europe thus sought political reforms which could enable and strengthen
mass based political parties, in the hopes of making their political systems more democratic and responsive.
Democratic reformers in the United States, in contrast, sought policies which would weaken political parties in
order to achieve precisely the same goals.
Weak Labor
A second distinctive feature of 20th century American politics has been both the weakness of trade unions and the anti-political strategy they adopted late in the last century. European unions tend to be much larger and stronger than their American counterparts. These unions, moveover, have been active forces in supporting socialist political parties, and pushing for welfare state programs. The weakness and timid political strategy adopted by American unions is often seen as critical variable helping explain why American politics has not been pushed further to the Left.
The Liberal Traditions argument posits that size and strategy of American unions is a result of our cultural individualism as well at our belief in the market as opposed to the state. In short, Americanism conflicted with politicized unionism. Once again, the historical evidence tells a somewhat different story. The structure and strategy of American unions is instead best understood as a rational adaptation to the institutional realities in which they were forced to operate.
In this case it was the Founding Father's decision to create a large federal nation -- a country with divided sovereignty and structural limits on national political authority -- which altered the strategic choices of working class organizers as America industrialized. The U.S.'s unique federalist structure directly impinges upon the ability to organize unions because of the discrepancy between political and economic power this system creates. Size, of course, is often presented as a major explanation of America's exceptionalism; but we must remember that to have a large federal union was an explicit institutional choice. Madison, arguing for the adoption of the Constitution in Federalist 10, put the issue most bluntly:
The smaller the society, the fewer will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the
fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will be a majority be found of the
same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the
compass within which they are placed, the more easily they will concert and execute their plans
of oppression. Extend the sphere and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you
make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the
rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who
feel it to discover their own strength and to act in unison with each other". (Federalist 10, p. 83).
With the Connecticut Compromise, the Founders specifically agreed to a large national economy in which the national government would still have relatively limited powers. They built, in short, a polity in which commerce, trade, industry, and employers could travel across state boundaries, but state laws could not. As Lowi points out, "[e]ven a cursory review of the policies of state governments in the nineteenth century quickly demonstrates that the 'reserve powers' amounted to virtually all of the important government in the United States... Those features of capitalism about which a proletarian consciousness presumably develops -- such as the laws against trespass and obstruction, laws against any interference with individual contract, laws against conspiracies to organize to control labor against subsistence wages -- were state laws. Laws justifying legal violence were state laws" (1984:46).
In other industrializing nations the political battles for worker protection, the right to organize and were national battles. In the U.S. these were state battles. This difference sets up radically different political/economic constraints and incentives. In America, as soon as a state would consider interests and demands of working class reformers, capital would threaten to leave the state to other state's with a "more favorable" environment. Thus, this form of federalism dramatically enhanced the "exit" option (Hirshman) for capital, and in so doing dramatically biased the game against strong working class organization. American unions developed the peculiarly 'volentaristic' strategy late in the last century as a conscious response to these political realities.
There were, of course, several quite militant working organizations which attempted to organize in the U.S. despite the institutional obstacles. But in each case these unions were repeatedly beaten back by either private or public armies representing the interests of employers who routinely used new immigrants to replace organized workers (Greenstone, ; Korpi and Shalev, 1980). But much more important than the violent opposition unions had to overcome in the U.S. were the institutional obstacles they faced.(15) The most important of these was the power of the Federal courts to overrule state legislation. Hattam, for example, shows that it was only after the courts had overruled legislative victories in several industrial states that labor organizers decided to adopt the volentarist approach. Adolf Strasser, one of the early union advocates for the volentarist approach, explicitly argued that legislation was futile in the American political context:
There is one fact that cannot be overlooked," he exhorted during a debate over the demand for an
eight hour work day at the A.F of L.'s 1894 convention. "You cannot pass a general eight-hour
day without changing the constitution of the United States and the constitution of every State of
the Union... I hold that we cannot propose to wait with the eight hour movement until we secure
it by law... I am opposed to wasting our time declaring for legislation being enacted for a time
possibly after we are dead. I want to see something we can secure while we are alive (cited in
Hattam, 1992:164).
Indeed even noted volentarist A.F. of L. chairman, Samuel Gompers was an "economic determinist" who was profoundly class conscious.(16) But Gompers was a pragmatist and not an individualist ideologue. This pragmatism grew out of rational calculation of what he believed was possible within the political/economic context he saw in America in the late 1800s. From his experiences he concluded that "the concentration of economic power as an inevitable fact of industrial capitalism. Labor could try to hedge in, but not challenge, the power of the rising new class" (Bell, 1967:37).
Gompers, once an advocate of political unionism, by the 1890s had come to volentarism in response to past failures of a more political strategy (Hattam, 1992). "[The A.F. of L.] is guided by the history of the past," replied Gompers to questioning by Socialist Member of Congress, Morris Hillquit, "drawing its lessons from history, to know of the conditions by which the working people are surrounded and confronted; to work along the lines of least resistance; to accomplish the best results in improving the condition of the working people."(17) He saw these experiences as evidence that a political strategy could not work in this country. Why? The necessary political alliances with farmers, greenbackers, small businessmen, intellectuals, etc. "merely sucked the worker into the vortex of a swiftly rising political whirlwind, lifted him high, and dumped him unceremoniously when its force was spent" (Bell, 1967:37).
In short, the dominant American unions' commitment to volentarism was pragmatic not ideological. The
decision was not based on a belief in liberal ideas, individualism or a commitment to market principles, but was
instead grew out of a deep skepticism of the possibilities for the success of a political strategy in the American
political/economic context. Victoria Hattam's superb comparison of early British and American union strategies
argues similarly: "After almost a century of parallel development, the English and American labor movements
began to adopt quite different strategies, largely in response to the pattern of frustrations and rewards that flowed
from the political systems within which they organized" (1992:178).
Weak Government
The final key feature of American politics which is necessary to explain the relative underdevelopment of this county's welfare state is the fragmentation of political power within its national decision making institutions. Clearly, weakness of the political parties is part of this story, but it is equally important to recognize that inside the halls of Congress power is institutionally fragmented and decentralized. American political history is brimming with example of cases in which there was widespread agreement among the majority of the members of Congress that a particular reform was desirable, but key incalcitrant individual members -- who clearly did not represent the majority view -- were able to slow the process down radically, reshape the proposals in important and meaningful ways and even sometimes prevent reform from becoming law altogether.(18) The institutional fragmentation of power inside the halls of Congress yields a degree of political power to individual members which would be unthinkable in any other democratic system in the world.
How and why did we develop these kinds of decision making institutions in the United States, while European democracies became more centralized and elitist? In this case the culturalists would argue that it was not America's liberal ideology that provides the best explanation; in this case it is the egalitarianism of our political culture which is to blame. I argue instead, that the constitutional separation of powers provides the foundation for an explanation, but we must also examine the ways in which Congress and the executive adapted the 18th century to the new needs and demands of an increasingly complex industrial democracy .
Pre-modern legislatures throughout the world were loosely structured, decentralized and relatively unspecialized. Decision making tended to be made in informal manner in which the institutions could be adapted to the particular needs of the day. But as Stephen Skowronek suggests, these institutions were insufficient for the challenges of the modernizing nation. In his study of the modernization of the American state he tells us, "Industrialism, in all its dimensions, exposed severe limitations in the mode of governmental operations that had evolved over the nineteenth century and that supported the powers and prerogatives of those in office" (Skowronek, 1982:13).
Whereas the legislature could claim that it was more democratic (and could increasingly open itself up to broader segments of the public in order to demonstrate this point) the executive could claim that only it could manage the turbulence of the times. Once again, all modernizing democracies in the late 1800s were caught between the demand for a more responsive political system on the one hand, and the demand for more efficient decision making institutions on the other. In most countries this dilemma evolved into an institutional battle between the executive and the legislature. European polities eventually addressed this dilemma through the centralization of political authority. By the early late 1800s or early 1900s, the balance of power had shifted to parliament. In some cases this process was incremental and other cases quite dramatic, but in each case European parliaments demanded greater and greater participation and eventually control over the executive functions of government. They specifically demanded and won control over their respective cabinets. The result was that with the growth of increasing powerful mass based political parties, a single set of elites could now dominate both the legislative and executive functions of government: They developed "Cabinet Government." In this context, then, the demand for more efficient government and more democratic government could both be accommodated through the centralization of political power.
In the U.S., of course, the battle the executive and the legislature was structured quite differently. In this
case, the executive and legislative branches of government were both constitutionally separated and democratically
legitimate. Therefore the executive in America was better able to fight off the encroachment of its power by the
legislature than were its European counterparts. But this institutional battle only complicated the demand for more
efficient government. Congress, we must remember, was not populated by strong ideologically united political
parties, but instead continued to be fragmented into a multiplicity of regional interest (Sundquist, 1973). Certainly
one option would have been that Congress yield authority over substantive policy to the Presidency. But, as Polsby
has shown, Congress instead chose to protect its institutional prerogatives, creating an elaborate committee system
which devolved political authority for particular policy decisions to individual committees and subcommittees
(Polsby, 1968; Polsby et. al. 1969). They created "Committee Government."
I have tried to show in the preceding discussion how the basic constitutional structure, the early extension
of suffrage, federalism and the separation of powers shaped the ways in which political reformers structured
responded to the enormous changes witnessed in all modernizing nations at roughly the turn of the last century.
Europeans developed strong union movements which could be used as political support for policy activists in their
attempts to build welfare state programs. American unions, instead had much weaker links to the state and
sometimes even opposed specific welfare state programs. The U.S. developed institutional barriers to strong
national political parties, European nations developed coherent ideological parties broadly representing different
classes in society. Whereas the United States fragmented power within national government, European nations
developed Cabinet Government. In the following section I will demonstrate how these basic institutional decision
making structures have contributed to the development of different welfare state institutions. In the final section I
will explain how this has contributed to the anti-statism so easily observed in America.
The Modern American Welfare State
In parliamentary terms, one might say that under the U.S. Constitution it is not now feasible to 'form a Government' one formed of an elected majority that is able to carry out an overall program, and is held accountable for its success or failure. (Lloyd Cutler, 1980)
The fragmentation of institutional power and responsibility in American politics has had fundamental consequences for the development of character of American policy making throughout the twentieth century.(19) Fragmentation weakens political elites ability to govern effectively. Each member of Congress gains access to his or her own base of institutional power and therefore is less dependent upon those higher up the institutional hierarchy for support. This has meant that it is exceptionally difficult and sometimes impossible for those in leadership positions to push or pull Congress into policy positions even when a majority of the citizenry and a majority of the political elite desire change.
In more centralized parliamentary systems, individual legislators are bound to support their party's position. This institutional fact gives these same legislators the 'political cover' to support measures which they may find political distasteful in the short run but could either strengthen the party or help solve national problems in the long run. The fragmentation of authority in the U.S., in contrast, left Members of Congress individually accountable for their actions. They thus faced powerful incentives to pay closer attention to the short-term electoral consequences of their votes than to the long-term policy effects of their actions (cf. Mayhew, 1974; Fiorina, 1977).
The consequent destruction of the structures, rules, and norms that facilitate broad-gauged
deliberative dialogue produced a Congress unable to engage in a reasoned and collective
consideration of emerging national problems. In other words, Congress so "adapted" its
organizational structures and procedures to the strategic processing of an industrial-era agenda
that it weakened or lost those institutional mechanisms necessary for a broad discussion of the
problems and governing principles. Lacking such mechanisms, Congress now finds it difficult to
discover a new logic of politics that would enable its members to break out of the politics of
interest representation and embrace collective solutions to postindustrial policy dilemmas (Dodd,
1993:429).
Studies of American welfare state development are, in effect, studies of how policy activists have attempted to get around America's uniquely fragmented political institutions in their effort to bring about reform. Any student of American political history knows the essential story line well. Even in cases where the President and both houses of Congress have been controlled by the same political party, the fragmentation of political authority has either prevented reform entirely, or has forced reformers to dramatically scale back their reform ambitions. In every single public policy arena, whether health policy, housing policy, employment policy, social security, taxation or whatever, the political history is tells a common story. Political and/or administrative reformers design a plan which is dramatically altered, watered down or rejected as it moves through the legislative branch. Reformers can be quite persistent and eventually, usually only after many failed attempts and significant alteration of the original plan, they are able to finally push a bill through both houses.
In the process of bringing in the required Congressional support, however, reformers are forced to not only water down the program, but also must provide particular incentives or sweeteners to a huge number of particular constituencies or interests. If the President signs onto the new plan (if he signs it and if the Courts don't overturn it), the final program is generally a shadow of the original self. So many compromises and concessions were required along the way that many of the original sponsors are left wondering whether what they got is better than nothing at all. Too often, it is not.(20)
In sum, the further fragmentation of Madison's system of checks and balances has contributed to a polity replete with veto points.(21) This has meant a political structure which encourages interests to mobilize in small and narrow interest groups and disadvantages broad coalitions of interest. This system also gives huge power to interests who wish to stop, alter or modify governmental action. This, in turn, has meant that if and when public policies do make it through the labyrinth, they have to accommodate a large number of very specific interests and thus tend to be far less coherent or efficient than they would have been had they not had to wheedle their way through the labyrinth and past so many veto points. Derthick's study of the development of the American Social Security system is but one of thousands of studies which demonstrate the ways program activists had to manipulate and adapt their vision to the political realities of the fragmented nature of American politics.
If they were to build the structure of social protection they believed the nation needed, they had to
adapt to their environment without sacrificing essential objectives, and they had to manipulate it
without jeopardizing their own legitimacy.
Their adaptations to the external environment took many forms, of which the incremental mode
was probably the most important. They learned not to ask for everything at once. They asked for
a piece at a time, and then trimmed the pieces.(Derthick, 1979:206)
The contrasting histories of the American Social Security Act and the Old Age Pension system in Britain could not be more clear. In the British case reformers cloistered themselves away from the fray of parliamentary politics precisely because they did not want to have their plan diluted and compromised. Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, working separately on two different parts of the plan were able to design their system in virtual isolation from the political fray. When the act was finally introduced the parliament was left on the sidelines. Indeed, according to Heclo, "Parliamentary consideration of the government's plan was perfunctory and added nothing of substance" (Heclo, 1974:89). In the American case, 'parliamentary considerations' for better or worse, defined the structure of our old age pension system.
Similar contrasts could be drawn with respect to virtually all major public policy arenas. In the U.S. reformers must design and adapt their policies to cater to the objections and desires of a huge number of interest groups and Congressional constituencies. In parliamentary systems compromises must be made, particularly in the cases of coalition government, but when programs have been decided on by relatively small groups of elites they can and usually are passed though their respective legislatures with very little substantive change or amendment.
Consider for a moment, how different America's social welfare state would be today if President's
Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson could have called the Democratic Party leadership together, and with
this small group of elites, could have designed and implemented social welfare policies, tax policies, urban renewal
policies, national health insurance policies, etc. without needing to tailor these programs to the demands or
objections of particular members of Congress and the interest groups they represented. It is difficult to imagine
such an outcome precisely because this kind of decision making would be inimical to the twentieth century
American system of government. Such a system would undermine America's system of 'checks and balances.' It
would also enhance the power of technocrats and social reformers. It would, quite clearly in my view, contribute to
a larger and more efficient welfare state.
The Costs of Fragmentation
There are two deeply troubling consequences of the fragmentation of political authority in America. First, it makes government enormously inefficient. This is not simply an issue of slowing down the process, or choosing incremental decisions making over synoptic decision making. Secondly, while this system of interests group/veto politics too often underfunds and poorly design programs benefitting broad or general constituencies, it too easily yields enormous particularized benefits, programs and tax dollars to special interests. On the one hand, citizens see their government spending hundreds of billions of their tax dollars on ineffective programs designed to combat poverty, crime, drugs, public housing, education, infrastructure etc. etc.. Despite this spending, these problems have not gotten any better and in many cases they have gotten worse. On the other hand, citizens see their tax dollars being spent on pork-barrel and a large number of other programs that have only one real justification -- the politically powerful interest groups demanded them.(22) It should not be difficult to appreciate why citizens in America do not trust public officials with their money. There is simply too much evidence telling them that much, too much, of that money is being wasted and that too few problems are being solved.
In short, policies shape attitudes about public policy. As Polanyi argued long ago, when a state does something badly this becomes an argument for why the state should do less (1957:86-102). Or, as Castles (1978) argued, when a state does something well, this becomes an excellent argument for allowing the state to engage in further activity. Over time these types of historical experiences will shape political culture. Thus, the more inept and inefficient state policies over time, the more anti-state values are reinforced.
As Inglehart has shown, ideas about politics are learned. They are not genetically inherited, or otherwise passed down unaltered from one generation to the next. Each generation develops its ideas about what is true, what is good, what is possible by interpreting what they see through what they value. And when we have inherited competing values, such as equality and liberty or responsibility and liberty, experience helps us decide which values more accurately reflect the reality we experience and thus which values should guide our actions our behaviors, and our public policies.
Americans, even in the late twentieth century hold conflicted values. But our experience with government
increasingly teaches us not to trust these institutions and that collective solutions do not solve social or economic
problems. Americans widely believe that politicians only listen to powerful interest groups and that citizens
general interests are not represented. A multitude of academic studies have confirmed this basic proposition. As a
consequence, American's believe that they don't get what they pay for and, increasingly, they distrust their state
(Ladd et. al. 1979; Hochschild, 1981; Eismeier, 1982; McClosky and Zaller, 1984; Crocker, 1981).
TABLE 4 GOES ABOUT HERE
Conclusion
I believe that we tend to rather naively think that a democratic republic is a political system in which the government does what the citizens want it to do.(23) This assumption is too naive for many reasons. First citizens only rarely are clear about what they want. More often their preferences, opinions and even their values are multiple, conflictual and vague. Democratic governments must then translate and interpret what their citizens want and sometimes democratic government must do things that citizens clearly do not want (like raising taxes). A naive understanding of democracy also fails to recognize the substantial power elites have in evoking and or shaping the preferences of ordinary citizens. Governments do not simply wait for citizens to demand public policies, they also set the agenda. Finally, what citizens believe about politics, what they think is possible and desirable is fundamentally shaped by what government does for them. In other words, what citizens want is in part determined by what they seen and experienced. Thus if a government is disorganized, inefficient and ineffective citizens will want it to do different things than if their experience tells them that it is efficacious.
The new President, Bill Clinton, enters office on a rising tide of optimism. Much of the nation shares the hope that governmental power can now be harnessed to manage the difficult transition this country will have to make as it enters the twenty-first century. He faces, however, enormous obstacles to his success. The problems of institutional fragmentation have only gotten worse in most recent decades and thus the President's power to move a legislative agenda through Congress is unfortunately limited. He also confronts a nation which, while hopeful, has become increasingly skeptical of government's ability to govern.
If the President is successful and his administration is able to overcome the institutional sclerosis we have
constructed in this country, he can contribute to the reconstruction of the American political culture. He can tap
into that part of our culture which is deeply egalitarian and has an abiding belief in a common good for all
Americans. If, however, his initiatives flounder in the legislative maze and the programs enacted are half-hearted
and ineffective, the new evidence will reconfirm American's distrust of government and build on their
individualism, egocentrism and suspicion of all things collective. My institutional analysis suggests that the later
outcome is most likely. I hope that it is wrong.
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Endnotes:
1. See Ron Rogowski (1974) for very solid critique of culturalist theory on this point.
2. As Ekstein admits in a spirited defense of the concept: "The basic reason why a culturalist account of change is intrinsically difficult to construct (hence, why culturalists have in fact tended to waffle in explaining change) is simple: the postulates of the approach all lead to the expectation of political continuity" (Ekstein, 1988).
3. Historians have long fought over the question of whether American political history is best characterized as consensual or conflictual. Richard Hofstadter whose book, The American Political Tradition, is one of the most widely regarded analyses in the 'consensus' tradition recants on the consensus view in the following way: "It has been awkward for me, in the sense that it [The American Political Tradition] has linked me with other historians with whom I have significant misgivings, and because I have misgivings of my own about what is known as consensus history... I was less interested in the art of exercise of power than I was in the art of acquiring it, and this I suppose to some extent sets limits upon the value of what I had to say about several members of my cast of characters" (1974:xxviii, xxx). For explicit critiques of consensus theory see Ross, 1991.
4. Ekstein, for example, tells us: "'Orientations to action' [the "touchstone of culturalist theory"] are general dispositions of actors to act in certain ways... We may call them, as did Bentley, soul-stuff or mind-stuff...Orientations are not 'attitudes': the latter are specific, the former general, dispositions" (Ekstein, 1988:790).
5. In the U.S. taxes consumed 30.1 percent of GDP in 1989. British taxes were 36.5% of GDP. Swedish taxes, however, took a shocking 56.1% of GDP. Most European countries fall closer to the U.K. than Sweden.
6. There are, however, important exceptions to these general tendencies. America has historically spent more on public education and old age security than most other democracies.
7. The essential observation that modernization brought with it new demands is uncontroversial. Some scholars, however, have argued that we can essentially reduce differences in welfare state output to differences in the timing of industrialization and levels of economic development. In so doing the "logic of industrialism" school has simply the basic observation about the relationship between modernization and the social welfare state too far. See for example, Wilensky and Lubeaux, 1958; Wilensky, 1975. For a more elaborate critique of this argument see, Flora and Alber,1977).
8. Space limitations prevent a discussion of the differing institutional reforms adopted within Europe. For example, whereas Britain adopted a single member district electoral system and stripped the House of Lords of its budgetary authority, most continental countries adopted on form or another of proportional representation and several retained a bi-cameral legislatures. These differences are important and should not be ignored. For a further discussion of these issues see Carstairs, 1980; Steinmo, 1993.
9. Lenin himself noted this problem, arguing that there was no "big nation-wide democratic task facing the proletariat" in America, and that therefore it was difficult to mobilize them to revolt.
10. The literature covering this era in American history is particularly fascinating. For example see, Shefter, 1978; Burnham, 1970; Sundquist, 1973; Hofstadter, 1963; Skowronek, 1982; Hays, 1957.
11. The literature on this or reform in Europe is also abundant. For cross country comparisons in English see, Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens, 1992; Moore, 1966; Bendix, 1964; Rimlinger, 1977; Ashford, 1986; Heclo, 1974; Flora and Heidenheimer, 1977.
12. Compare the analyses of this era in the writings of: Bagehot, 1977; Beer, 1969; Dodd, 1977; Shefter, 1978; Ashford, 1986; Fraser, 1973; Rueschemeyer et. al. 1992; Skocpol and Ikenberry, 1983; Sundquist, 1973; Wilensky and Lubeaux, 1958; Flora and Alber, 1977.
13. We should not lose sight of the impressive electoral gains achieved by both socialists and progressives in this era despite the large disincentives faced by third parties given the decentralized first-past-the-post single member district electoral system for House elections and the winner take all electoral college system for the country's only national election.
14. It was the ruling elite which attempted to fragment political power in Europe at the turn of century. The introduction of proportional representation, for example, was a last ditch attempt to undermine the growing power of working class organizations.
15. Unions faced violent opposition in Europe as well. Most European states, however, did not experience a huge inflow of immigrant workers who could be used to replace striking workers.
16. Gompers wrote in his auto-biography 'Economic power is the basis upon which may be developed power in all other fields. It is the foundation of organized society..." But, Bell tells us, these philosophical beliefs did not turn Gompers into a socialist activist precisely because of his belief that labor could not win in the struggle over state power. "This conviction underlay Gompers philosophy of 'volentarism' which consisted essentially, in a fear of the state. Since the state was a reflection of dominant economic pressure groups, any state intervention could only lead to domination by big business" (Bell, 1967:38).
17. Cited in Litwick, 1962:40. See also, Greenstone, 1969.
18. Recall the case of National Health Insurance discussed above. It is interesting to consider the fact that if the U.S. Congress had passed a national health insurance plan as favored by strong majorities of American citizens since the mid-1940s (Coughlin, 1980; Free and Cantril, 1967; Marmor, 1970); and if we spent as much on health care through this system as we do through the private health care system (a dubious assumption, I agree), the U.S. would not have an exceptionally small social welfare state. In fact American government paid for all health care now paid for privately, the U.S. would have very close to the average OECD tax burden (37% as compared to the 38.4% average.)
19. For a similar argument see Dodd, 1977. See also Schattschneider, 1942, and 1960.
20. I can think of no major policy issue which has not followed some approximation of this general pattern in the U.S.. Some examples of good political histories of particular policy issues which tell this basic story are: Marmor, 1970; Witte, 1896; Weir, 1992; Derthick, 1979; Weir, Orloff and Skocpol,1988 Skocpol and Ikenberry, 1983; Manley, 1970; McConnel, 1966; ; Light, 1985; Birnbaum and Murray, 1987; Steinmo, 1993.
21. I borrow this phrase from Immergut, 1992.
22. See Downs, 1957; 1960 for an examination of the rational basis of these perceptions.
23. This is why the culturalist explanation for America's relatively smaller welfare state is so appealing.