Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:04:22.201Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Neoliberalism, Race, and the American Welfare State

A Discussion of Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording, and Sanford F. Schram's Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2012

Mary Fainsod Katzenstein*
Affiliation:
Cornell University

Extract

Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. By Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording, and Sanford F. Schram. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. 368p. $75.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

It is more than 15 years since the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act was passed in 1996, famously described by then-President Bill Clinton as “the end of welfare as we know it.” In Disciplining the Poor, Joe Soss, Richard Fording, and Sanford Schram analyze recent changes in US welfare policy as reflections of broader transformations of the “governance” of poverty, arguing that these transformations represent a new form of “neoliberal paternalism” in which race continues to be an important element. In this symposium, a diverse group of political scientists working on welfare issues have been asked to critically assess the book's account and to comment more broadly on the importance of the “governance of poverty” to the future of American politics.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Type
Review Symposium: Neoliberalism, Race, and the American Welfare State
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012

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

Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Department of Justice. 2010. Correctional Populations in the United States. NCJ 236319 Appendix 2. 7.Google Scholar
Garland, David. 2001. The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Golooba-Mutebi, F. and Hickey, S.. 2010. “Governing Chronic Poverty under Inclusive Liberalism: The Case of the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund.” J. Dev. Stud. 46(7): 1216–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guetzkow, Josh, and Western, Bruce. 2007. “The Political Consequences of Mass Imprisonment.” In Remaking America: Democracy and Public Policy in an Age of Inequality, ed. Soss, Joe, Hacker, Jacob S., and Mettler, Suzanne. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 228–42.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard. 2011. The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod, and Nagrecha, Mitali. 2011. “A New Punishment Regime.” Criminology and Public Policy 10(3): 555–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacey, Nicola. 2008. The Prisoners' Dilemma: Political Economy and Punishment in Contemporary Democracies. The Hamlyn Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lacey, Nicola. 2009. “Bringing the Penal State Back In.” (Speaker: Loïc Wacquant)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoumuRRwOqY. This event was recorded and uploaded by Isewebsite on October 6, 2009 in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building (accessed August 5, 2012).Google Scholar
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, US Department of Justice. 1971. National Jail Census 1970, p. 10, Table 2.Google Scholar
Lipsky, Michael. 2010. “Street Level Bureaucrats.” United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney, Australia. February 24. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX1IivgPspA&playnext=1&list=PLC3C60B4C900C79CD&feature=results video (accessed August 5, 2012).Google Scholar
Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward, Richard. 1971. Regulating the Poor: The Public Function of Welfare. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Smith, Anna Marie. 2007. Welfare Reform and Sexual Regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
US Department of Justice. 1972. Prisoners in State and Federal Institutions: 1968–1970. National Prisoners Statistics Bulletin, April, p. 22, Table 10C.Google Scholar
Wacquant, Loïc. 2009. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham. NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Western, Bruce, and Pettit, Becky. 2010. “Incarceration & Social Inequality.” Daedalus 139(1): 819.Google Scholar
Whitman, James Q. 2012. “The Free Market and the Prison.” A review of Bernard Harcourt, The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order.” Harv. L. Rev 125 (March): 1212.Google Scholar