scholarly journals The federalist frontier : early American political development in the old northwest

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristopher Maulden
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Old Northwest ◽  
Early American ◽  
The Federalist

The American Frontier as State of Nature

World Affairs ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 181 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-41
Author(s):  
Michael J. Faber
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
John Locke ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
American Frontier ◽  
Frederick Jackson Turner ◽  
Early American ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
American Society ◽  
In The Beginning

John Locke claims that “in the beginning, all the world was America.” If this were, in fact, the case, then the early American frontier ought to resemble the state of nature that Locke describes. Louis Hartz finds in early American settlement a sort of instinctive Lockeanism, while Frederick Jackson Turner sees in the frontier the primary determining factor in American development. Combining the two suggests that American society may well have developed along Lockean lines, but only if the frontier was in fact at least an approximation of Locke’s state of nature. The frontier does resemble such a state in certain respects, though Locke’s concepts of natural law and justice are conspicuously absent, or at least very weak. This helps to explain why the Americanized version of Locke described by Hartz, rather than a more accurate and complete reading, became the dominant ideological force in early American political development.

Interest Groups and American Political Development

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dara Z. Strolovitch ◽  
Daniel J. Tichenor
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Organized Interests ◽  
Early American ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
American Interest ◽  
Group Politics

Do interest groups enhance or impede the democratic exercise of power? This chapter addresses this long-debated question by examining what longitudinal and American Political Development (APD) approaches contribute to the study of interest groups and what studies of organized interests illuminate about APD. We survey the dominant approaches to interest groups within political science, examine organized interests and lobbying in the early American republic, and document the rise of the modern interest group system at the beginning of the twentieth century. We then explore the role played by advocacy organizations in the trajectories of progress for marginalized groups. We show that APD scholarship has offered fresh insights about patterns and transformations of American interest group politics, and argue that our understanding of the development of American politics will benefit from more robust conversations between the traditional interest group literature and longitudinal and APD approaches to group politics.

Democracy and The Federalist: A Reconsideration of the Framers' Intent

1959 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
Contrary View ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Political Principles

It has been a common teaching among modern historians of the guiding ideas in the foundation of our government that the Constitution of the United States embodied a reaction against the democratic principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence. This view has largely been accepted by political scientists and has therefore had important consequences for the way American political development has been studied. I shall present here a contrary view of the political theory of the Framers and examine some of its consequences.What is the relevance of the political thought of the Founding Fathers to an understanding of contemporary problems of liberty and justice? Four possible ways of looking at the Founding Fathers immediately suggest themselves. First, it may be that they possessed wisdom, a set of political principles still inherently adequate, and needing only to be supplemented by skill in their proper contemporary application. Second, it may be that, while the Founding Fathers' principles are still sound, they are applicable only to a part of our problems, but not to that part which is peculiarly modern; and thus new principles are needed to be joined together with the old ones. Third, it may be that the Founding Fathers have simply become; they dealt with bygone problems and their principles were relevant only to those old problems. Fourth, they may have been wrong or radically inadequate even for their own time.

The Color Line and the State

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley S. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Color Line ◽  
Minority Politics ◽  
Early American ◽  
Core Questions

This article examines the ways in which scholars of American political development (APD) have encountered the color line through their research, and the strides they have made in bringing race back into the field of political science in general and the study of the state in particular. Three core questions about race and APD are considered: How is race defined? When does race matter? In what direction does race matter? Two approaches relating to race and American politics are discussed: the race relations approach and the racial politics (or minority politics) approach. It then explores five challenges that must be addressed in order to overcome the persistent connections between APD and the discipline’s racial anomalism. It also analyzes the role of race in the establishment of the early American welfare state and concludes by reflecting on the persistence of racial inequality and prospects for APD in the twenty-first century.

Making a Slave State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan A. Quintana
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Critical Geography ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Early American ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Post War ◽  
Enslaved African Americans

How is the state produced? In what ways did enslaved African Americans shape modern governing practices? Ryan A. Quintana provocatively answers these questions by focusing on the everyday production of South Carolina’s state space—its roads and canals, borders and boundaries, public buildings and military fortifications. Beginning in the early eighteenth century and moving through the post–War of 1812 internal improvements boom, Quintana highlights the surprising ways enslaved men and women sat at the center of South Carolina’s earliest political development, materially producing the state’s infrastructure and early governing practices, while also challenging and reshaping both through their day-to-day movements, from the mundane to the rebellious. Focusing on slaves’ lives and labors, Quintana illuminates how black South Carolinians not only created the early state but also established their own extralegal economic sites, social and cultural havens, and independent communities along South Carolina’s roads, rivers, and canals. Combining social history, the study of American politics, and critical geography, Quintana reframes our ideas of early American political development, illuminates the material production of space, and reveals the central role of slaves’ daily movements (for their owners and themselves) to the development of the modern state.

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