R. Shep Melnick, Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government, has put together a syllabus of readings that we will be working through on the subscriber-only Syllabus podcast series. Every 3-4 weeks we’ll do another reading together.
SYLLABUS
These readings are designed, not to describe “successor ideology,” but to place it in context by examining some of the best academic writings on American politics. These essays are useful for addressing three questions:
What institutional factors help us understand the sudden influence of this rejection of core liberal values?
How does successor ideology both grow out of and depart from the United States’ distinctive political culture?
What are the leading examples of the growing influence of successor ideology?
In the first podcast episode about my book The Transformation of Title IX, we discussed the evolution of Title IX, emphasizing how peculiar features of policymaking in the US (especially the complex interaction and “leapfrogging” of courts and administrative agencies) has allowed fashionable academic theories to become embedded in federal policy.
Listen: Episode 1 - R Shep Melnick on Title IX and the Civil Rights State.
A full transcript of our conversation is available for paid subscribers.
From there we moved on to discuss Robert Kagan’s understanding of “adversarial legalism.” In his book and articles, Kagan laid out the broader institutional pattern of which Title IX regulation is a part.
Reading: Robert A. Kagan - “Adversarial Legalism and American Government,” in The New Politics of Public Policy, eds. Landy and Levin (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
Listen: Episode 2 - Shep Melnick on Adversarial Legalism
A full transcript of our conversation is available here.
Here are eight more readings that we will review in coming weeks.
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