Thesis advisor: Kenneth I. Kersch / There is a widespread belief among Americans that the nation’s political system suffers from dysfunction. It is, therefore, worth asking whether the Constitution has been complicit in contributing to the perceived political dysfunction. Does the United States, in effect, suffer from constitutional dysfunction? I conclude that political and societal developments subsequent to the Founding have retooled and repurposed American governing institutions, rendering their function antithetical to the original design of the Constitution. The long-term and collective effects of these changes may contribute to contemporary constitutional dysfunction. At the outset, I discuss general purposes and functions of constitutions. By describing constitutional functionality, we can better grasp the nature of when constitutions work and when they fail to function. As such, we will be best equipped to not only design a metric by which to measure constitutional dysfunction, but to apply this rubric to the American regime. “Chapter Two” will detail the framing of the American Constitution and explore the principles undergirding its creation. “Chapter Three” will cover the so-called “unfounding,” the processes and developments which have changed the character of governing institutions. “Chapter Four” will focus on proposed solutions which may be both misguided and potentially problematic. Finally, “Chapter Five” will consider the best approach to addressing American constitutional dysfunction. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Government / Controversies regarding the slavery and the Constitution often turn on investigation of original intent: Is the Constitution an antislavery or proslavery document? The arguments of West, Storing, Graber, and Finkelman show that scholarly opinion is greatly divided on this issue. This study, however, will present the case that the status of the document need not be resolved in order to determine whether the Constitution inaugurated a proslavery or antislavery project. Instead of attempting to determine the intent of the founders or to derive constitutional principles directly from their document a different task will be undertaken here. This paper will examine the “political logic” of the Constitution, both in terms of specific clauses and the structure of the whole. This study shows that the political logic of the Constitution is hostile to abolitionist paths of national, political development. Instead of setting in motion a project that places the institution of slavery on the road to elimination, the Constitution’s concessions to slavery provided a permanent privileging of slaveholding interests in the further development of the polity. / text

This project investigates how the emergent ideological, institutional, and political commitments of the national defense and security state shape the domestic programmatic agendas of modern presidents. Applying a historical and developmental analysis, I trace this dynamic from its origin in the twin crises of the Great Depression and World War II to examine how subsequent presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt have navigated the intersecting politics of this warfare -welfare nexus. I use original, archival research to examine communications between the president and his staff, cabinet members, administration officials, and Congressional leaders to better appreciate how the interaction of these dual political commitments are reflected in the formulation and promotion of the president’s budgetary requests and domestic policy initiatives. More directly, I focus on the relationship between the national security politics of the Cold War and the efforts of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower to support their objectives in either the expansion or retrenchment of the New Deal-liberal welfare state. My research suggests that Cold War concerns occasionally aided the growth of the welfare state in areas such as public health and federal aid to education, while at other times defense and security anxieties provided the backdrop for presidential efforts to diminish the political capacity of the welfare state. More specifically, I find that both Truman and Eisenhower constructed visions of national strength which framed their initiatives in national defense and social welfare as interrelated goals. In the end, I argue that the changing institutions, ideologies, and international commitments of the warfare state present both opportunities and challenges for presidents to articulate political visions in service of domestic policy advancement.

The effort to balance coexisting (and often conflicting) institutional objectives is a recurring theme throughout the history of American higher education. Colleges and universities are spaces that provide academic (and co-curricular) experiences that can activate a political consciousness, but are also places that are vulnerable to outside influences (indicative of the broader political climate) which may compel the prescription of institutional goals that undermine or shift attention away from these nonmaterial aims. This project examines the functions of the university in American life and considers how institutional development impacts the political socialization of the student body. Previous scholarship on student politics has often focused on campus conditions during a specific time and location and therefore is not equipped to address how macro-level structural changes in the higher education system, the study of which would necessitate a longer temporal scope, may influence engagement. A longitudinal periodization analysis is employed to detect longer-term trends and discern critical junctures that can help explain variation in political involvement among college students of different historical time and to uncover the causal mechanisms that facilitate (or impede) political development on campus. By encountering distinct cultural expectations of higher education, we can assess how social values conveyed in particular missions may stimulate or inhibit student political engagement. The contemporary era is dominated by institutional functions and educational aims that have historically not been directed at political socialization and is populated by students who do not meet the "preconditions of recruitment" as expressed in earlier periods. The significance of formative experiences has been well documented; the lessons that are learned (or unlearned) during emerging adulthood will subsequently inform political behavior. This investigation of the relationship between student politics, national development, and the purposes of higher education in American life demonstrates that the institutional medium through which we socialize does a great deal to shape how we socialize. / 2019-08-11T00:00:00Z

American civil religion is a topic in which there is a lot of interest but very little current scholarly activity. This is primarily due to there currently being no common understanding of American civil religion, hindering progress in the field. The first purpose of the dissertation is to rectify this situation by creating a solid theoretical understanding of American civil religion from which scholarship can progress. The second purpose of the dissertation is to examine the development of the American civil religion through history. This includes an interesting dynamic given the civil religion's purpose of promoting a shared identity. The process of promoting a shared identity involves defining the social group in question. When 'outsiders' enter the community, conflict ensues. Typically, the conflict continues until the parameters of the civil religion is enlarged, incorporating the new group. This is a continuing cycle within the American civil religion. Looking at this broad framework, one will able to see both the continuity and change from the founding period to the current version of the American civil religion. / text

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From its formation, the American federal government partnered with private organizations to accomplish state goals. With little formal organizational capacity, the American state relied on the resources and credibility of private organizations. This thesis investigates the success of public-private partnerships in American state-building. By looking at alternative enforcement mechanisms, this thesis adds to theories of state-building and private power. The American experience helps us conceive a more nuanced perspective on state formation that recognizes the state’s varying tools rather than focusing solely on the development of formal organizational capacity. The questions driving this thesis are: How can public-private partnerships expand state capacity? Are there systematic differences in the outcomes and purposes of partnerships based on the branch of government – whether legislative, presidential, bureaucratic, or judicial – that mediates the partnership? My case studies examine the use of partnerships in the early state’s interactions with American Indian tribes. The cases put these general questions into more focus by examining if these partnerships expanded state capacity to dictate the terms of engagement and the content of racial orders. When these partnerships expand capacity, I explore the ways in which this state goal is accomplished. However, I remain acutely aware of the potential for partnerships to both fail to build capacity or become merely means to service a private interest.

Cette thèse inscrite dans la tradition intellectuelle de l’American Political Development analyse les liens dialectiques entre l’entrepreneuriat des présidents des États-Unis sur la question de l’assurance maladie, l’essor du système de santé américain contemporain et son produit le plus récent, le Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010). Il s’agit d’analyser les influences réciproques entre un exécutif qui subit de très fortes contraintes institutionnelles dans ce champ précis des politiques publiques et un système de santé dont les fondements et les contours sont en perpétuelle mutation. Les réformes de santé, de par leur nature transversale et polémique, leur complexité mais aussi leur poids dans l'économie américaine, agissent directement sur les équilibres de la gouvernance publique. Elles doivent être considérées comme un laboratoire et un accélérateur d’innovations pour la présidence, dans un système politique où sa sphère d’action est limitée, tant par les freins et des contre-pouvoirs que par l’influence d’autres entrepreneurs politiques dotés d’une légitimité d’action égale voir supérieure à se saisir de la question épineuse de la santé. L’adoption du PPACA, sa promulgation par un président démocrate après un siècle de rendez-vous manqués avec les réformes ambitieuses de l’assurance maladie, ainsi que sa mise en œuvre compliquée, offrent un cas d’étude de premier plan sur les évolutions de l'exécutif étasunien et sur la normalisation d’un entrepreneuriat présidentiel hétérodoxe. / This dissertation which falls within the intellectual tradition of American Political Development explores the dialectical links between the entrepreneurship of US presidents on health care reform, the development of the American health care system and its latest product, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which was signed into law in 2010. This work analyses the mutual forces of influence at work between a deeply constrained executive in this particular field of public policy and a health care system whose foundations and contours are in constant mutation. Given its controversial nature, its complexity and its weight in the US economy, health care reform directly affects the dynamics of public governance. Health care reform must therefore be considered as a laboratory and an accelerator of innovations for the presidency, in a political system in which its sphere of action is limited, as much by checks and balances as by the influence of other entrepreneurs who enjoy equivalent if not greater legitimacy than the executive branch to take action on the thorny issue of health care. The passage of the PPACA, the fact that it was signed into law by a democratic president after a century of failed attempts at ambitious reform as well as its arduous implementation, are a picture perfect case study on the evolutions of the presidential institution and on the routinization of heterodox presidential entrepreneurship.