The Associational State: American Governance in the Twentieth Century

In the wake of the New Deal, U.S. politics has been popularly imagined as an ongoing conflict between small—government conservatives and big—government liberals. In practice, narratives of left versus right or government versus the people do not begin to capture the dynamic ways Americans pursue civic goals while protecting individual freedoms. Brian Balogh proposes a new view of U.S. politics that illuminates how public and private actors collaborate to achieve collective goals. This "asso...