Obama at the Crossroads: Politics, Markets, and the Battle for America's Future

by Lawrence R. Jacobs, Desmond King

Overview

The 2010 election serves as a bookend to one of the remarkable political periods in recent U.S. history. Amidst a profound economic crisis, Americans elected an African American to the presidency and massive Democratic majorities to Congress. Beginning in 2009, the President and Congress put forward a sweeping agenda to both address the economic crisis and enact progressive policies that liberals had been advocating for decades. Within a year and a half, they would pass health care reform and financial reform alongside a stimulus package of nearly a trillion dollars. Democrats also rescued the auto industry via a partial government takeover and expanded the Bush administration's incipient program for saving the banking sector by pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into it. Finally, the Obama administration dramatically increased our commitment in Afghanistan while simultaneously winding down our presence in Iraq.

In Obama at the Crossroads, eminent political scientists Desmond King and Larry Jacobs have gathered some of the best scholars in American politics to take stock of this extraordinary period. Covering the financial crisis, health care reform, racial politics, foreign policy, the nature of Obama's leadership, and the relationship between the administration's agenda and broader progressive goals, this will serve as a comprehensive overview of the key issues facing the Obama administration as it entered office.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199845385
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/02/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Lawrence R. Jacobs is Professor of Political Science at University of Minnesota. Desmond King is Professor of Politics at Oxford University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments.

Part I: Obama at the Crossroads.
1. Varieties of Obamaism: Structure, Agency and the Obama Presidency.
Lawrence R. Jacobs and Desmond S. King.

Part II: The Legislative Crossroads.
2. Finance Politics and Financial Reform in the Obama Administration.
Daniel P. Carpenter.
3. Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenge of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era.
Suzanne Mettler.

Part III: Structural Crossroads: Political Economy and Racial Orders.
4. Situating Obama's Response to the Crisis: Finance, Regulation and the American State.
Leo Panitch.
5. Barack Obama's Election and America's Racial Orders.
Rogers M. Smith and Desmond S. King.

Part IV: Obama's Critical Juncture.
6. American Renewal and the Politics of the New Middle America.
E.J. Dionne Jr.
7. Barack Obama and the Angry Left: The Fight for Progressive Realism.
Lawrence R. Jacobs.