Historical Institutionalist/Path Dependency

First, historical institutionalists may focus on the way that particular gendered understandings of politics get lodged within governing structures, where they persist over time even when the original political logic behind such programs fades. For instance, in her work on the social-provisioning structures developed during the New Deal, Suzanne Mettler (Reference Mettler1998) shows that the gendered social policies (particularly widows' pensions) created during the Progressive era persisted, in reformulated terms, under the Social Security Administration as part of a two-tiered structure that provided generous, civically enhancing benefits to working men (and their dependents), while also allowing for meager, civically diminishing benefits for poor single mothers. The state-based widows' pensions programs of the Progressive era were formulated at a time when there was resistance to the federal government's playing a role in providing social welfare, and when governmental support at any level was more acceptable for women and children than it was for men (Skocpol Reference Skocpol1992). All of that changed in the late 1930s, when the Supreme Court finally endorsed a broader role for the federal government under the commerce clause, and when both the courts and the executive moved from a negative to a positive understanding of rights and the government's role in supporting citizens.

Why did the widows' pensions program persist in the form of Aid to Families with ChildrenFootnote ⁵ under the Social Security system? Path-dependent theory suggests that the existence of a prior set of institutions is crucial here. They provide an established way of doing business, and a set of state actors with vested interest in the continued existence of the institutions within which they work. Further, they create a set of expectations for ongoing benefits by citizens and policymakers who have grown accustomed to a given mode of social provisioning. Not only was this institutional structure internally gendered (Acker Reference Acker1992), but it also helped to create gendered political identities (dependent for women, independent for men) and civic statuses. As Mettler writes (1998, xi):

Other work on the history of the development of the American welfare state also traces the long-term impact of the gendered institutional arrangements from which that state originated (Abramowitz Reference Abramowitz1996; Fraser and Gordon Reference Fraser, Gordon, Laslett, Brenner and Arat1995; Mink Reference Mink1995). Political institutions are, of course, capable of change. But the nature of this change is also likely to contain echoes, and to incorporate elements, of earlier institutional formations. In the case of social policy, those echoes can still be heard in the divergent fates of Social Security Insurance, on the one hand (conceived of as a reward to male workers and their families), and Temporary Aid to Needy Families, on the other (which is still imagined as a begrudging measure of support for poor, single mothers).

Political Change and Disorder

Whereas many in political science focus on political continuities, scholars within APD often study political discontinuities and processes of political change associated with great events, such as wars, economic dislocations, and regime changes. At moments of political and social dislocation, social actors tend to seek narratives or scripts that explain what has happened, provide a sense of reassurance in the face of suffering and loss, and promise a path toward a better future. It is also the case that political shocks and dislocations create a sense of a common fate or identity that may be used to bind a nation together. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor or the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Americans were vividly conscious of the common national identity, and sought ways to come together as a country to address the problems that had occurred.

It is my contention that such moments of political dislocation are especially likely to give rise to gendered political ideologies that articulate a common national identity, express a sense of social values and mores, and provide a response that the broader community can engage in to help create a desired political future. For instance, the nationalism borne of regime changes (particularly, perhaps, in postcolonial movements) often expresses a strong view about the role of women in providing the social foundations for a polity, through their roles as mothers who inculcate certain political virtues in their children, as community members who safeguard the morals of the larger society and promote social goods such as education and health care, and as the helpmates of men who see them through these times of crisis and transition (e.g., by helping unemployed husbands, by sending their sons to war).

Within the United States, it might be worth noting that the Civil War gave rise to the expression of very distinctive gender roles within the North and the South. Southerners expressed a much more paternalistic view that cast white men as masters and protectors, not just in racial terms but within their families and over white women as well. Much of the racial conflict that followed in the years after the war (as the South sought to refashion its racial order), during segregation, and in the decades leading up to the Civil Rights movement, was expressed in terms of gender ideals as well. The rash of lynchings that accompanied the creation of racial segregation was typically justified as a response to black male sexual attentions to white women (Hall Reference Hall1993). Racial segregation on trains and in public venues was often legitimated as a way of protecting the virtues of white women (Welke Reference Welke2001). And throughout the South, antimiscegenation laws expressed a form of social resistance to constitutional mandates for racial equality and equal protection (Novkov Reference Novkov2001).

More recently, the war on terror has sometimes been explained as an effort to promote political rights for women elsewhere, which has served as a reflection on the American vision of women's rights, as articulated by the current administration (Ferguson Reference Ferguson2005). In a radio address given shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan, First Lady Laura Bush (Reference Bush2001) commented, “The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists. . . . Civilized people throughout the world are speaking out in horror—not only because our hearts break for the women and children in Afghanistan, but also because in Afghanistan we see the world the terrorists would like to impose on the rest of us.” As Lila Abu-Lughod (Reference Abu-Lughod2002) asks, “Why are these female symbols being mobilized in this ‘War against Terrorism’?” (p. 784) There is a desire to understand the reasons behind the attacks of 9/11, Abu-Lughod suggests, that focuses on culture and religion, rather than on such factors as previous American entanglements in the Middle East and Far East that grew out of American opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Understanding the global security threats of the new century becomes an exercise in understanding American identity, and the differences between the United States and other peoples of the world. As Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (Reference Rice2004) said, “The War on Terror—like the Cold War—is as much a conflict of visions as a struggle of armed force.” In this view, the emphasis on women's rights is motivated by a desire to remain who we are as Americans—and to bring American values (which are seen as universal values) to other parts of the globe—in order to resist the imposition of Islamic radicalism on the United States.

Large-Scale Historical Processes

Scholars in the APD tradition have long been attentive to the impact of large-scale, long-term change on politics—such as the impact of industrialization (Berk Reference Berk1994) and modernization (Orren Reference Orren1991). In recent years, scholars within comparative politics have been examining the process of democratization. The study of democratization began with attention to the late-twentieth-century emergence of democratic regimes (Huntington Reference Huntington1991) in Latin America (with the downfall of military authoritarian regimes) and Eastern Europe (with the downfall of communism). Subsequently, the study of democratization has moved beyond these recent cases to a more general interest in historical trends concerning democracy and inequality (Whitehead Reference Whitehead2002). In a wide variety of ways, many scholars have contemplated whether there is a long-term trajectory toward greater political equality; more protection for individual rights; less legal sanctioning of ascriptive hierarchies related to race, sex, ethnicity, nationality, and religion; and greater expectation of democratic representation and accountability.

Within APD scholarship, a great deal of fine scholarship has focused on race and the legacy of slavery as the core problematic in American efforts to achieve greater political equality and a healthier democracy.Footnote ⁶ Finally, with the rights revolution in the mid-twentieth century, the United States largely overcame its racist past by promoting individual rights and democratic access for all. The success of the rights revolution within the United States has been premised on the erasure of social difference and the valuing of political equality and individual rights on terms that reject the long-term relevance of social identities for politics. Further, not only did African Americans benefit from the dismantling of racial segregation; other ascriptive groups were able to follow the lead of African Americans and achieve full individual rights and democratic inclusion.

Or did they? Following the lead of Eileen McDonagh in her forthcoming book, Gendering the State: Democratization and Women's Political Leadership, I argue that many of our usual presumptions about democratization and political modernization are challenged when we focus on gender. Gender is a social difference that is not readily erased—not entirely, at least—because of the persistent sense in even the most liberal of nations that one's sex matters to one's social experiences and one's political outlook. There is a wide variety of views on how it matters and when or whether it should matter, but there is no country that has given up on the power of the state to recognize and reward different gendered roles and experiences. Further, as McDonagh and others (Phillips Reference Phillips1993; Ritter Reference Ritter2006) have argued, the erasure of social difference may not be the most effective way to promote full democratic inclusion for women. McDonagh contends that states that combine an individual-rights tradition with a more maternalist or kinship-based tradition (that recognizes women's experiences and family-based concerns in politics) do the best job of fully including women in the polity. Overall, the inclusion of gender into the study of large-scale historical processes can complicate or challenge our normal presumptions about the unfolding of long-term political processes such as democratization.