1993/01/01 by Eileen McDonagh · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Political and Economic history of UK and US #Social Policy and Reform Studies #American History and Culture
paper · doi:10.1017/s0898588x00001103
openalex publication_date 1993/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
An enduring contribution of the new institutionalism is its affirmation of the significance of the Progressive era. As a result, we have learned not only how the “big bang” explosion of welfare legislation in the New Deal rests upon structures and precedents set in the early twentieth-century decades, but also how this early reform period continues to influence contemporary policies and politics. Alan Dawley, Bruce Ackerman, and Morton Keller, for example, point to an activist state established in the Progressive era to check a laissez-faire governing system as the foundation of subsequent New Deal accomplishments upon which reformers built “where progressives had left off.” Theda Skocpol adds a cross-national perspective, showing how the American welfare state instituted in the early twentieth century evidenced a distinctive “maternalist” dynamic oriented toward addressing women's economic needs, in contrast to “paternalistic” norms in Western European nations assisting male workers.