This study represents the intellectual biography of an idea. That idea is the Welfare to Work regime of the New Labour government of Tony Blair over the period 1997 to 2007. This Welfare to Work regime is situated within a concept of an Enabling State developed in speeches by New Labour Ministers, particularly Blair, Gordon Brown, David Blunkett and the brothers Ed and David Miliband. The study elaborates the concept of 'enabling', traces its origins back, partly to the debates at Putney at the end of the English Civil War, partly through working-class history, and partly through the transformation of Gladstonian Liberalism wrought by New Liberals such as T.H. Green, L.T. Hobhouse and J.A. Hobson between 1880 and 1914. lt will argue that New Labour can be understood only by reference back to these origins. The study will also define the Enabling State by defining its opposite, the Disabling State created, albeit unintentionally, by the Conservatives between 1979 and 1997. The study employs a subset of Discourse Analysis, Speech Act Theory, to study the Labour speeches, since there has yet not been elaborated a 'theory of the Enabling State'. A participant observation is also employed to discuss how 'enabling' works at the level of individuals. The study is an attempt to 'read history backwards' as it were: to define the enabling state as it exists now, at least at the level of rhetoric, and then, as practical history, to trace lead ideas back to their sources, and to find antecedents: not cause and effect, for that is too difficult, but to find practices, traditions, concepts and discourse on which New Labour have been able to draw. This study will argue that, far from abandoning traditional Labour values, New Labour has found new ways to realise them.

This study is a chronicle of the efforts of R. Walton Moore and the Roosevelt Administration to liberalize the conservative Virginia Democratic Party during the 1930's. Moore was an elderly politician and amateur historian who had been in and out politics in the state for over forty years. He was opposed at every turn in his efforts by state Democratic Party organization leader Senator Harry F. Byrd, and his conservative colleague Senator Carter Glass. Both Glass and Byrd opposed most New Deal legislation throughout the decade. Moore served officially as Assistant Secretary of State and Counselor to the State Department, but his unofficial role was an advocate for Virginia's anti-organization Democrats. These Democrats were generally supportive of the New Deal and its programs, but wielded little political power because of the tight control with which Byrd and Glass distributed patronage. This essay traces Moore's three major efforts to align the Democratic Party in the Old Dominion closer to the Roosevelt Administration.

Master of Arts / Department of History / James E. Sherow / Whether as a “progressive” or an anti-New Dealer, Casement was always primarily concerned with creating a stable business climate for the beef industry––even though his ideas on methodology changed. Beginning in the 1920s, he argued for the preservation of republican virtue through the language of eugenics. Eugenics may be broadly defined as “the science of the improvement of the human race by better breeding.” During the Progressive era, Casement primarily supported structural reforms such as conservation and federal regulation of industry. After WWI he became increasingly concerned with the moral direction of the country and believed that stricter individual responsibility—encouraged by limited government—along with eugenic-inspired reforms were necessary to restore the country’s republican virtue. In Casement’s view, the New Deal inaugurated a governmental takeover of private property through unfair taxes for wealth redistribution and production controls that sapped individual initiative, thereby weakening an already weakened populace—especially in the agricultural sector.

This thesis seeks to show the pattern of red-baiting used in the United States to counter various forms of "subversive" social change. The paper illustrates how the issue of anti-communism was used as a political tool on the national level, and this tactic would trickle down to the state and local level, specifically into the public school systems. Focusing on Orleans Parish public schools, the narrative of red-baiting and anti-communist rhetoric is brought to life through the trials of Fortier High School. This study will chronicle how teachers became the tools of nation-building through state-sponsored "Americanism" programs. Students of Fortier and other high schools in the region were taught that to be American means specifically not to be Communist. This then is a contribution to the continuity of the politics of anti-communism in the United States from the New Deal to the Cold War eras.

Thesis advisor: Alan Lawson / Before the Civil Rights Movement began in the mid-1950s, an early movement led by white southern liberals fought for social and economic equality between the races. These men and women defied the stereotypes of bigoted white southerners and gradualist appeasers and challenged the norms and social customs of their region. Unfortunately, their legacy and accomplishments have largely been overshadowed by dramatic events of 1950s and 1960s. This thesis seeks to reexamine their work in view of their courage and unwavering determination to bring justice and equality to the South. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: History.

This dissertation offers a new account of New York City's politics and government in the 1930s and 1940s. Focusing on the development of the functions and capacities of the municipal state, it examines three sets of interrelated political changes: the triumph of "municipal reform" over the institutions and practices of the Tammany Hall political machine and its outer-borough counterparts; the incorporation of hundreds of thousands of new voters into the electorate and into urban political life more broadly; and the development of an ambitious and capacious public sector--what Joshua Freeman has recently described as a "social democratic polity." It places these developments within the context of the national New Deal, showing how national officials, responding to the limitations of the American central state, utilized the planning and operational capacities of local governments to meet their own imperatives; and how national initiatives fed back into subnational politics, redrawing the bounds of what was possible in local government as well as altering the strength and orientation of local political organizations. The dissertation thus seeks not only to provide a more robust account of this crucial passage in the political history of America's largest city, but also to shed new light on the history of the national New Deal--in particular, its relation to the urban social reform movements of the Progressive Era, the long-term effects of short-lived programs such as work relief and price control, and the roles of federalism and localism in New Deal statecraft.

House Resolution 109 mandates the duty of the United States Federal Government to the people of the United States to create a Green New Deal to combat the triple crises that people are currently facing. In order to understand this mandate and whether or not it is calling for sustainable changes, a discourse analysis was used to examine the discourse as text, interaction and context. This study seeks to fill in a gap of missing literature about House Resolution 109 due to its recent creation. The results show that while author Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez emphasizes her beliefs of democratic socialism throughout the text as well as economic-based solution, the document lacks strong sustainability and fails to address the intricacies of sustainable development.

Honors Thesis (History)--Oberlin College, 2001. / Title from home page. "May 2001." Description of resource as of: June 19, 2001. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2009. / Title from screen (viewed on December 1, 2009). Department of History, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Robert G. Barrows, Nancy Marie Robertson, Melissa Bingmann. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-98).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of English Language and Literature, August 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.