Red State Blues: How the Conservative Revolution Stalled in the States

Abstract

The half-missing piece is race. Starr is so deft at sketching this theme, I wish he had made more of it. After all, oligarchy as populism entrenched itself in the South for almost a century, and, starting in the 1970s, right-wing counterrevolutionaries found traction with white voters by racializing the welfare state in both the United States and Europe. The new populism has deep roots in whiteness as well as inequality. Entrenchment powerfully sketches the consequences. Entrenchment stands in the grand narrative tradition of Barrington Moore, Ira Katznelson, and, well, Paul Starr. It takes a simple idea, reveals its complexities, explores it across history, and ends with a stark warning for our own time.

State Labor Laws and Government Responsiveness to Public Opinion

“…With a few caveats, policy outcomes are said to chime with the policy preferences of the median voter as parties compete for public support (Grofman 2004). Recent studies of various levels of American government find that the policies adopted are largely congruent with the partisan and ideological composition of their electorates (Berkman and Plutzer 2005;Erickson, Wright, McIver 1993;Einstein and Kogan 2016;Grossman 2019;Stimson, Mackuen, and Erikson 1995;Tausanovitch and Warshaw 2013).…”

“…Some studies of American national institutions and state governments find that they achieve a high level of responsiveness (Erickson, Wright, and McIver 1993;Erikson 2015;Grossman 2019;Stimson, Mackuen, and Erikson 1995). Other research finds that government is more responsive to elites and the affluent than the mass public or the downtrodden (Achen and Bartels 2016;Erikson 2015;Flavin 2012;Gilens 2012;Gilens and Page 2014;Hertel-Fernandez, Mildenberger, and Stokes 2019;Rhodes and Schaffner 2017;Rigby and Wright 2013).…”