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.

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.