RICHARD M. SKINNER challenges notions that the strong presidency of the modern era has proved incompatible with powerful political parties. Instead, he argues that, since 1980, the United States has seen a dramatic growth in presidential partisanship across a range of areas.
On 20 January 2009, either Barack Obama or John McCain will place his hand on a bible, swear to uphold and defend the Constitution, and become the forty-fourth president of the United States. The new president will immediately become responsible for the issues on which he campaigned, those that he ignored but for which he will nonetheless be held accountable, and all those unanticipated issues for which he will also be expected to devise solutions.
How does the ideology under girding national policy reform trickle down to state and local-level policy and front line service delivery? What are the ripple effects of such changes for other institutions and for population outcomes? This book assesses trends in welfare reform and workforce training and effects for single mothers. The authors trace the prominence and causal role of the idea of “work first” at multiple levels and institutional settings. They find it has become the singular operating rationale for welfare recipients and low income adults more generally across the United States since the late 1990s. They further argue that it has shut doors to higher education.