Forging a New Democratic Party: The Politics of the Third Way From Clinton to Obama

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorAlbo, Gregory A.
dc.creatorAtkins, Curtis Gene
dc.date.accessioned2015-08-28T15:40:36Z
dc.date.available2015-08-28T15:40:36Z
dc.date.copyright2015-05-04
dc.date.issued2015-08-28
dc.date.updated2015-08-28T15:40:35Z
dc.degree.disciplinePolitical Science
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation analyzes the evolution of the American Democratic Party’s ideological orientation from 1985 to 2014. The central problem is to develop an understanding of how shifts in political-economic context and factional agency combine to produce alterations in the predominant ideology of a U.S. political party. The primary question posed is how the centrist perspective known as the ‘third way’ replaced the left-liberalism of the New Deal and Great Society eras as the guiding public philosophy of the Democratic Party. Whereas many scholars propose that the modern third way revisionism of center-left parties is explained primarily as electoral opportunism or as an adoption of the political logic of the New Right, this study focuses on how changes in political economy (particularly the transition from Keynesianism to neoliberalism) prompted the elaboration of an alternative ideological framework that sought to adapt to new times. In the U.S. case, the primary agent of this process of ideological reorientation was the New Democrat faction, most well-known for its connection to President Bill Clinton. Combining qualitative document analysis and focused interviews with personnel from the think-tanks and policy institutes of the New Democrat faction and its competitors, the dissertation finds that the initiation and maintenance of reorientation is dependent on a faction’s success in elaborating and continually ‘decontesting’ an alternative framework that de-legitimatizes a party’s pre-existing ideological commitments. Adapting Michael Freeden’s approach to the study of ideologies, a conceptual morphology, or map, of third way politics is presented that centers on the particular meanings of opportunity, responsibility, and community elaborated by the New Democrats. These ‘decontested’ concepts signified a commitment to equality of opportunity over egalitarian outcomes, a vision of the welfare state centered on obligation rather than entitlement, and a devotion to communitarian rather than class or identity politics. By analyzing the process of continuous decontestation engaged in by this faction, the dissertation argues that the third way not only constitutes a distinct ideological system, but that it has been the predominant policymaking outlook of the Democratic Party for nearly a quarter century – stretching from Clinton to Obama and possibly beyond.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/30098
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectPolitical Science
dc.subjectPublic policy
dc.subjectAmerican history
dc.subject.keywordsDemocratic Party
dc.subject.keywordsThird way
dc.subject.keywordsBill Clinton
dc.subject.keywordsNew Democrats
dc.subject.keywordsMichael Freeden
dc.subject.keywordsIdeology
dc.subject.keywordsDecontestation
dc.subject.keywordsDaniel DiSalvo
dc.subject.keywordsFactions
dc.subject.keywordsFactionalism
dc.subject.keywordsSocial democracy
dc.subject.keywordsBarack Obama
dc.subject.keywordsPresidential politics
dc.subject.keywordsParty politics
dc.subject.keywordsDemocratic Leadership Council
dc.subject.keywordsWelfare reform
dc.subject.keywordsReinventing government
dc.subject.keywordsNew public management
dc.subject.keywordsUnited States politics
dc.subject.keywordsAmerican political parties
dc.subject.keywordsHillary Clinton
dc.subject.keywordsNew Democrats
dc.subject.keywordsAl From
dc.subject.keywordsWill Marshall
dc.subject.keywordsSocialism
dc.subject.keywordsTony Blair
dc.subject.keywordsKeynesianism
dc.subject.keywordsNeoliberalism
dc.subject.keywordsNew Times
dc.subject.keywordsMarxism Today
dc.subject.keywordsCompassionate conservatism
dc.subject.keywordsAl Gore
dc.subject.keywordsProgressive Policy Institute
dc.titleForging a New Democratic Party: The Politics of the Third Way From Clinton to Obama
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Atkins_Curtis_G_2015_PhD.pdf
Size:
3.02 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Political Science

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.