Race and American Political Development

Race has been present at every critical moment in American political development, shaping political institutions, political discourse, public policy, and its denizens’ political identities. But because of the nature of race—its evolving and dynamic status as a structure of inequality, a political organizing principle, an ideology, and a system of power—we must study the politics of race historically, institutionally, and discursively.Covering more than three hundred years of American political history from the founding to the contemporary moment, the contributors in this volume make this extended argument. Together, they provide an understanding of American politics that challenges our conventional disciplinary tools of studying politics and our conservative political moment’s dominant narrative of racial progress. This volume, the first to collect essays on the role of race in American political history and development, resituates race in American politics as an issue for sustained and broadened critical attention.

"Charged with original insights and oriented by a thoughtful introduction, this volume’s essays combine historical imagination with analytical reason to probe American political development from the vantage of race. Learned and challenging, the book provokes thought, sharpens questions, and deepens knowledge."--Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University"Race and American Political Development performs an important intellectual and civic service. This collection of rich, discrete studies does not merely "read race into" American political development. It should alter how we think in general of that scholarly field and its purview."--Adolph Reed Jr, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania"This important volume places race at the center of political development in America. Leading lights and fresh voices in the field sweep across the history exploring new ways to think about the impact of racial division on the shape of the political order and the dynamics of its change. There is no better introduction to this subject, one of the massive facts of the American experience."--Stephen Skowronek, Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political and Social Science, Yale University"This excellent collection of diverse essays communicates an important truth about American political development--race has been, and continues to be, 'present at every critical moment.'"--S.E. Horn, Everett Community College

Joseph E. Lowndes is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon. He is author of From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism.Julie Novkov is Associate Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is the author of Constituting Workers, Protecting Women and Racial Union, and a co-editor with Bárbara Sutton and Sandra Morgen of Security Disarmed.Dorian T. Warren is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies and a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy.