“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” said incoming President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as he pledged in March 1933 to lead the U.S. federal government in “action—and action now” to meet crises of global upheaval and economic collapse. Subsequent New Deal reforms have been lionized by analysts. But what were the pervasive fears to which Roosevelt pointed, the fears that shaped and informed transformations in U.S. policy and politics in the mid-twentieth century?

Just before his death in 2007, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., noted that his magisterial Age of Roosevelt had been “conditioned by the passions of my era” and observed that “when new urgencies arise in our own times and lives, the historian’s spotlight shifts, probing …into the shadows, throwing into sharp relief things that were always there but that earlier historians had carelessly excised from collective memory.” Taking this insight to heart, my new book Fear Itself reexamines the New Deal from a perspective informed by the urgencies of the early twenty-first century—with its economic volatility, global religious zealotry, and military insecurity.  more...

Do Americans care that income gaps between the rich and everyone else are growing by leaps and bounds? When citizens do care, what do they want done about it? Across the political spectrum, debates about these questions have raged with new force since the Occupy Wall Street movement took to the streets in 2011 and the 2012 elections highlighted the issue. To read daily coverage, though, is to hear little more than superficial or partisan assertions. We can do better by tracking public attitudes over many years, which show us both that Americans care about inequality and are very much aware of its negative consequences for all but a sliver at the top. more...

Religion and science are sometimes portrayed as polar opposites – with pundits pointing to fights over the teaching of evolution in schools or media episodes such as Republican politician Marco Rubio’s suggestion that the age of the earth is up for debate. But America’s many vibrant religious traditions and beliefs are often more nuanced than oversimplified stereotypes pretend. My research looks at the attitudes of many kinds of religious believers, and focuses in detail on the specific ways conservative Protestants challenge modern scientific claims. more...

Over the last forty years, abortion has frequently taken center stage in American politics—as it did once again in 2012. This may seem only natural for an issue that speaks to deep values and the role of women in society. But abortion is at the margin of politics in most other rich countries, including our closest sister nations, Britain and Canada.

Why is U.S. politics different? Journalists and pundits point to the strong role of religion in American life. But Canada also has many Catholics and evangelical Protestants, and both Canada and Britain have strong antiabortion movements. In all three democracies, public opinion favors the right to an abortion in cases of rape or fetal abnormality or to protect a woman’s health, and is much less supportive when family size, poverty, or marital status are at issue.

Beyond religiosity and public opinion, national institutions play a crucial role. Abortion has become so politically explosive in the United States in significant part because we have an independently powerful Supreme Court, strong private medical professionals, weak political party elites, and a decentralized political system where controversies can live on and issues can be raised again and again. more...

Americans live in an aging society. As the Baby Boomers born after World War II retire, older people will become a larger segment of the U.S. population for at least the next two decades. Demand for federally funded Social Security and Medicare benefits will grow, and all fifty states will also face big challenges meeting the needs of elders. Our research shows that some states will do better than others in providing attractions and supports that matter for America’s graying citizens – and women serving in state legislatures will often be leaders in devising public policies that further care for the elderly in ways that improve the quality as well as length of life.

Previous research has documented that female state legislators are more interested than their male counterparts in supporting education and other public programs that meet the needs of families with children. To be sure, research to date leaves much more to be learned about the conditions that translate a female legislative presence into extra support for families. Democratic Party control of legislatures may magnify women’s influence, and so may an active women’s movement in any given state.

In addition to asking how women’s presence in legislatures translates into more support for families, we should also wonder about the extent of female legislative support. Does women’s legislative impact extend to policies that aim to help elders as well as younger families with children? And, if so, do states with more women in their legislatures actually prove to be better places for older people to live and flourish? We have investigated these issues as part of a broader project comparing state-level public policies that help people at various stages of aging. more...

“Welfare” as it now exists in the United States aims to provide a short-term safety net for very needy families with children and prepare adults to get jobs. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families law passed by Congress in 1996 said that cash assistance should be limited to no more than five years (sixty months) over a lifetime. But states were allowed some flexibility to extend this limit for up to one-fifth of their welfare recipients who face unusual problems.

Until last year, the state of Maine took advantage of this flexibility to provide extended help to less than 15% of its caseload. Some people could continue to get benefits if they complied with all welfare rules, including the rule about seeking or preparing for employment. But in 2011, the Maine legislature voted to make the sixty-month limit virtually absolute. Exceptions would be granted only if people were awarded a special hardship extension due to coping with disability, domestic violence, or the need to care for a disabled family member.

When the new law took effect in 2012, more than 2,000 Maine families were affected. About 44% requested hardship extensions, but only a quarter of all people scheduled for termination got the exception. Since January 1, 2012, more than 1,500 Maine families, including 2,700 children have lost cash benefits. Who are these families and what are their circumstances? To answer this question and consider whether welfare has adequate protections for the most vulnerable, I surveyed a sample of 54 Maine families whose benefits were stopped and did some additional in-depth personal interviews to probe people’s experiences more deeply. more...

Appalling gang rapes in places ranging from New Delhi, India, to Steubenville, Ohio, ignite public outrage and raise concern about violence against women. The problem is persistent and widespread. In the United States, one in six women is sexually assaulted during her lifetime, and one in five experiences domestic violence at some point in her life. In Europe, women face a far higher risk from assaults than from cancer or terrorist acts. Facilitated by ideas positing female subordination, violence against girls and women violates human rights and harms children. It creates tremendous costs and inhibits economic and social progress for everyone.

The kinds of policies that can reduce violence against women are well known – but not all countries adopt them. What makes governments respond to the problem of violence against women? Why do some countries adopt policies earlier than others? To unravel the factors at work, our research probes developments in 70 countries between 1975 and 2005. We conclude that international norms and autonomous feminist organizational efforts are the keys to getting the problem of violence against women on the agenda and prodding governments to take action. more...

The United States is among the world’s leaders in imprisoning its citizens – a dubious distinction. America’s prison population has grown more than fivefold since the early 1970s. Minorities have been disproportionately affected, with African Americans incarcerated almost six times as the rate for whites, and Hispanics at twice the white rate. In great detail, scholars have spelled out the negative social consequences of the prison boom. Ex-felons struggle economically and often cannot vote. Their communities lose political clout. Saddest of all, the families and innocent children of prisoners suffer diminished health and life chances.

But what caused rates of imprisonment to shoot upward in the first place? Explanations abound, yet many obscure as much as they reveal because they either ignore or minimize the consequences of crime. Americans of color are more likely to be incarcerated – and they are also more likely to be victims of violent crime. My research explores the political and policy consequences of the facts about victimization. How did people of color, specifically African Americans, respond to rising crime rates? What role did black politics play in the development of mass incarceration? more...

The Tea Party soared to national prominence in 2009 and remains a force to be reckoned with. In November 2012, some 45 million registered voters, a fifth of the U.S. electorate, reported in a Fox News exit poll that they identified with the Tea Party. To build political power through the GOP, in the 2010 midterm elections Tea Party factions helped right-wing Republicans win super-majorities in many states, secure gains in the U.S. Senate, and take control of the House of Representatives. Democrats may have rebounded in 2012, yet more than nine of ten Tea Party-backed Republican House candidates also won election or re-election.

Why is the Tea Party enjoying so much success? Partisans and some commentators point to its stated support for fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and reduced regulation. But support for such long-standing conservative preferences is not all we see in Tea Party politics. Many Tea Party goals – and the angry style of politics – are anything but “conservative” in the sense of favoring social stability. Tea Partiers make flamboyantly extreme claims about President Obama – for example, that he wants to confiscate guns from Americans in order to facilitate massacres of whites. And they have urged Republicans to refuse to raise the debt limit and default on America’s debts, even if that would forfeit our nation’s good credit rating and push the world economy into financial crisis.

Getting at the true wellsprings of the Tea Party requires that we look again at what the late historian Richard Hofstadter famously called the “paranoid style in American politics,” a recurrent tendency characterized by “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.” In a survey I directed between January and March 2011, questions were put to 1,504 adults across the country. The results show that the paranoid beliefs and political style Hofstadter described have recurred in the Tea Party upsurge of the early 21^st century. more...

Are there magic bullets that will insure that every person can grow old gracefully – live out the final years with soundness in mind and body? Of course not. Illnesses or accidents can strike unexpectedly, and no one has the capacity to alter completely the influence of genetic destiny or avoid the inevitable decline of bodily systems. Yet there is much that each person can do – along with family members, friends, and caregivers – to maximize the likelihood of completing the final stages of life in strong, active, and satisfying fashion.

Professionally-vetted research, including studies I have completed with my colleague Edward Thompson, Jr., reveal that lifestyles can have a powerful effect on extending both the quality and quantity of the years available to each person as he or she grows older. Optimal choices require people to be well-informed and exercise good judgment about everything from eating habits and physical activity, to keeping in touch with other people and making regular visits to the doctor. more...