Desmond S. King - In the name of liberalism: illiberal social policy in the USA and Britain

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In the Name of Liberalism

Illiberal Social Policy in the USA and Britain

DESMOND KING

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OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6 DP
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Desmond King 1999
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First published 1999

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

King, Desmond S.
In the name of liberalism: illiberal social policy in the USA and Britain / Desmond King.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. United StatesSocial policy. 2. Great BritainSocial policy.
3. Public welfareUnited States. 4. Public welfareGreat Britain.
5. LiberalismUnited States. 6. LiberalismGreat Britain.
7. United StatesPolitics and government20th century.
8. Great BritainPolitics and government20th century. I. Title.
HN57.K54 1999 361.610941dc21 99-19785

ISBN 0198296096
ISBN 0198296290(Pbk.)

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

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For
Carolyn

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During the 19978 academic year I was fortunate to hold a Nuffield Foundation Social Science Research Fellowship, which provided release from my normal responsibilities and enabled me to complete this manuscript. I am extremely grateful to the Trustees of the Foundation for their support. I should also like to thank the British Academy for the valuable support provided by its Research Leave Scheme. My archival research in the USA was facilitated in significant part with assistance from Oxford Universitys Mellon Fund and I should like to thank the Funds Trustees and its chairman, Byron Shafer, for responding generously to requests for travel grants. My college in Oxford, St Johns, has provided some financial support toward the cost of the research required for this book, for which I am grateful. I have received assistance from archivists at the National Archives and the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, the Public Record Office at Kew, and from Judith May-Sapko at the Truman State Universitys Pickler Memorial Library.

At Oxford University Press, this project has benefited greatly from the encouragement and support of the Senior Editor for Political Science, Dominic Byatt, to whom I extend my genuine thanks. Dominic has not simply ensured an efficient and professional production of the book but offered his unwavering support throughout this process, as has his assistant Amanda Watkins, to whom I also extend my thanks. For careful and constructive readings of early drafts of this manuscript I should like to thank Alan Deacon, Nigel Bowles, Roger Crisp, Michael Freeden, Ross McKibbin, David Miller, Serena Olsaretti, Daniel Tichenor, and OUPs four readers. Randall Hansen undertook some research for one section of this study, for which I am grateful. Part of this research material, used in Chapter 3, comes from a paper which Dr Hansen, now a Research Fellow at Christ Church, Oxford, and I co-authored, entitled Experts at Work and published in the British Journal of Political Science , 29 (1999), 77107. The list of colleagues who have generously contributed to this volume through conversations, suggestions about readings or sources, or comments on drafts is long and includes Edward Berkowitz, Michael Burleigh, Carolyn Cowey, Harvey Feigenbaum, David Goldey, Robert Goodin, Randall Hansen, John Holmwood, Ira Katznelson, Jane Lewis, Rodney Lowe, Chris Pickvance, Nancy Leys Stepan, Byron Shafer, Julie Suk, Robert Taylor, Sarah Vickerstaff, Alan Ware, Albert Weale, Margaret Weir, Mark Wickham-Jones, Gavin Williams, Stewart Wood, and the organizers

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and participants in seminars at the Universities of Essex, Kent, and Oxford. I am grateful to each of them for their contribution which has undoubtedly saved me from many errors; those which remain are my responsibility.

D.K.
Oxford
October 1998

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