Governing Race: Policy, Process, and the Politics of Race

by Nina Moore

Overview

Moore argues that there is a fundamental incompatibility between race and governance. She examines the formal procedures used to enact the thirteen major civil rights laws and the policy concessions necessitated by the use of those procedures and notes the impact of the divisive nature of the politics of race upon procedure and substance.

Her analysis of 40 years of congressional civil rights lawmaking reveals that whenever race is introduced into the normal policy process, that process breaks down. In its place emerges an abnormal policy process—one that is inordinately demanding with respect to skill, input, and support/votes. She concludes that the substantive provisions of policies produced by this process are too weak to reduce huge racial disparities in education, housing, and employment. The reason race regularly generates abnormal process and policies is that it is too contentious for the standard governmental apparatus. This apparatus is designed to redress problems and issues undergirded by some measure of consensus. Race lacks such a consensual undercurrent and, therefore, is incompatible with standard governance processes. A provocative analysis of particular interest to scholars and researchers involved with American racial politics, minorities, and party politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275967611
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/30/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

NINA M. MOORE is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Colgate University./e Her research interests focus on American Political Institutions and the role of race in American politics.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Process, Policy, and Issue Politics
Governing Race in the Early Years
The Peak Years of Civil Rights Legislative Reform
Race and Civil Rights Policymaking in Transition
The Contemporary Politics of Racial Policymaking
An Overview: Race, Process, and Policy
Appendices
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Moore (political science, Colgate U.) started her investigations by asking why so many nationally elected lawmakers during the 1960s bothered with the concerns of a racial minority group that not only had little impact on democratic politics, but was socially, economically, and politically marginalized. But what she found in the personal papers of US senators made her widen her study to the relationship between race and institutional structure, the impact that race has upon traditional institutional arrangements and the effect of such arrangements upon race. She argues that race is such a divisive and contentious issue that it cannot be governed effectively. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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