States and Social Revolutions: A
Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China
About this title: Theda
Skocpol shows how all three combine to explain the origins and
accomplishments of social-revolutionary transformations.
The Missing Middle: Working
Families and the Future of American Social Policy
About this title: An eye-opening look at
how America's social policy has been hijacked by a rhetoric
of extremes.
Boomerang: Health Care
Reform and the Turn Against Government
About this title: A prize-winning
social scientist provides an incisive account of the changing
terrain of U.S. politics and public policy. Due to
far-reaching changes in the Reagan era. according to Theda
Skocpol, the Clinton Health Security bill became a perfect
foil for anti-government mobilizationthus its defeat provides
a unique window into the new political landscape. Photos &
drawings.
Vision and Method in
Historical Sociology
About this title: Some of the most
important questions of the social sciences in the twentieth
century have been posed by scholars working at the
intersections of social theory and history viewed on a grand
scale. The core essays of this book focus on the careers and
contributions of nine of these scholars: Marc Bloch, Karl
Polanyi, S. N. Eisenstadt, Reinhard Bendix, Perry Anderson, E.
P. Thompson, Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, and
Barrington Moore, Jr. The essays convey a vivid sense of the
vision and values each of these major scholars brings (or
bought) to his work and analyze and evaluate the research
designs and methods each used in his most important works. The
introduction and conclusion discuss the long-running tradition
of historically grounded research in sociology, while the
conclusion also provides a detailed discussion and comparison
of three recurrent strategies for bringing historical evidence
and theoretical ideas to bear upon one another. Informative,
thought-provoking, and unusually practical, the book offers
fascinating and relevant reading to sociologists, social
historians, historically oriented political economists, and
anthropologists--and, indeed, to anyone who wants to learn
more about the ideas and methods of some of the best-known
scholars in the modern social sciences.
Social Policy in the United
States: Future Possibilities in Historical Perspective
About this title: Health
care, welfare, Social Security, employment programs--all are
part of ongoing national debates about the future of social
policy in the United States. In this wide- ranging collection
of essays, Theda Skocpol shows how historical understanding,
centered on governmental institutions and political alliances,
can illuminate the limits and possibilities of American social
policymaking both past and present. Skocpol dispels the myth
that Americans are inherently hostile to social spending and
suggests why President Clinton's health care agenda was so
quickly attacked despite the support of most Americans for his
goals.
Diminished Democracy: From
Membership to Management in American Civic Life
About this title: Pundits and social
observers have voiced alarm as fewer Americans involve
themselves in voluntary groups where people meet regularly.
Thousands of nonprofit groups have been launched in recent
times, but most are run by professionals who lobby Congress or
deliver social services to clients. What will happen to U.S.
democracy if participatory groups and social movements wither,
while civic involvement becomes one more occupation rather
than every citizen's right and duty? In Diminished Democracy,
Theda Skocpol shows that this decline in public involvement
has not always been the case in this country--and how, by
understanding the causes of this change, we might reverse it.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, farmers'
groups, women's associations, unions, veterans groups,
fraternal orders, and crusades for social change and moral
reform spread across the United States. Using information
newly collected from antique stores and eBay auctions as well
as libraries and archives. Skocpol traces the growth and
activities of groups that operated nationally as well as
locally and recruited many American adults as members. She
shows how democratic government and voluntary associations
worked hand-in-hand through much of the nation's past. Then,
after the 1960s, civic life suddenly changed. Many new
advocacy groups appeared to speak on behalf of people formerly
at the margins of social life and politics. But professionally
managed agencies displaced membership groups, leaving regular
Americans with fewer opportunities to unite across class lines
and get involved in community and public affairs.
Social Revolutions in the
Modern World
About this title: Theda Skocpol,
author of the award-winning 1979 book States and Social
Revolutions, updates her arguments about social revolutions.
Protecting Soldiers and
Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in United
States
About this title: It is a commonplace
that the United States lagged behind the countries of Western
Europe in developing modern social policies. But, as Theda
Skocpol shows in this startlingly new historical analysis, the
United States actually pioneered generous social spending for
many of its elderly, disabled, and dependent citizens. During
the late nineteenth century, competitive party politics in
American democracy led to the rapid expansion of benefits for
Union Civil War veterans and their families. Some Americans
hoped to expand veterans' benefits into pensions for all of
the needy elderly and social insurance for workingmen and
their families. But such hopes went against the logic of
political reform in the Progressive Era. Generous social
spending faded along with the Civil War generation. Instead,
the nation nearly became a unique maternalist welfare state as
the federal government and more than forty states enacted
social spending, labor regulations, and health education
programs to assist American mothers and children. Remarkably,
as Skocpol shows, many of these policies were enacted even
before American women were granted the right to vote. Banned
from electoral politics, they turned their energies to
creating huge, nation-spanning federations of local women's
clubs, which collaborated with reform-minded professional
women to spur legislative action across the country. Blending
original historical research with political analysis, Skocpol
shows how governmental institutions, electoral rules,
political parties, and earlier public policies combined to
determine both the opportunities and the limits within which
social policies were devised and changed by reformers and
politically active social groups over the course of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By examining afresh
the institutional, cultural, and organizational forces that
have shaped U.S. social policies in the past, "Protecting
Soldiers and Mothers challenges us to think in new ways about
what might be possible in the American future.