Background
Lieberman, Robert Charles was born on September 26, 1964 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Son of Henry S. and Elizabeth (Caeser) Lieberman.
( Despite the substantial economic and political strides...)
Despite the substantial economic and political strides that African-Americans have made in this century, welfare remains an issue that sharply divides Americans by race. Shifting the Color Line explores the historical and political roots of enduring racial conflict in American welfare policy, beginning with the New Deal. Through Social Security and other social insurance programs, white workers were successfully integrated into a strong national welfare state. At the same time, African-Americans--then as now disproportionately poor--were relegated to the margins of the welfare state, through decentralized, often racist, public assistance programs. Over the next generation, these institutional differences had fateful consequences for African-Americans and their integration into American politics. Owing to its strong national structure, Social Security quickly became the closest thing we have to a universal, color-blind social program. On the other hand, public assistance--especially Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)--continued to treat African-Americans badly, while remaining politically weak and institutionally decentralized. Racial distinctions were thus built into the very structure of the American welfare state. By keeping poor blacks at arm's length while embracing white workers, national welfare policy helped to construct the contemporary political divisions--middle-class versus poor, suburb versus city, and white versus black--that define the urban underclass.
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( Shaping Race Policy investigates one of the most serio...)
Shaping Race Policy investigates one of the most serious policy challenges facing the United States today: the stubborn persistence of racial inequality in the post-civil rights era. Unlike other books on the topic, it is comparative, examining American developments alongside parallel histories of race policy in Great Britain and France. Focusing on on two key policy areas, welfare and employment, the book asks why America has had such uneven success at incorporating African Americans and other minorities into the full benefits of citizenship. Robert Lieberman explores the historical roots of racial incorporation in these policy areas over the course of the twentieth century and explains both the relative success of antidiscrimination policy and the failure of the American welfare state to address racial inequality. He chronicles the rise and resilience of affirmative action, including commentary on the recent University of Michigan affirmative action cases decided by the Supreme Court. He also shows how nominally color-blind policies can have racially biased effects, and challenges the common wisdom that color-blind policies are morally and politically superior and that race-conscious policies are merely second best. Shaping Race Policy has two innovative features that distinguish it from other works in the area. First, it is comparative, examining American developments alongside parallel histories of race policy in Great Britain and France. Second, its argument merges ideas and institutions, which are usually considered separate and competing factors, into a comprehensive and integrated explanatory approach. The book highlights the importance of two factors--America's distinctive political institutions and the characteristic American tension between race consciousness and color blindness--in accounting for the curious pattern of success and failure in American race policy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691130469/?tag=2022091-20
Lieberman, Robert Charles was born on September 26, 1964 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Son of Henry S. and Elizabeth (Caeser) Lieberman.
He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1986 and his Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University in 1994.
A scholar of American political development, Lieberman focuses primarily on race and politics and the American welfare state. From 1994 to 2013 he taught at Columbia University, where he served as chairman of the international and public affairs department from 2007 to 2012 and interim dean of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) from 2012-2013. He was instrumental in recruiting leading faculty to SIPA, restructuring the curriculum, and convening an international conference on the future of global public policy education.
In 2013, he was named the 14th provost of Johns Hopkins University, concurrently joining the faculty of the department of Political Science at the Johns Hopkins Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts & Sciences on July 1, 2013.
In this role, Lieberman is responsible for "promoting and coordinating the university’s teaching and research mission" across the university"s nine academic divisions. He also has oversight for research at a university that for thirty-five years has led the country in higher education research spending.
Lieberman has written extensively on American political development, social welfare policy, issues of race and politics in America, institutional racism, and the welfare state. Books
2001, Shifting the Color Lincolnshire: Race and the American Welfare State.
Harvard University Press.
2005, Shaping Race Policy: The United States in Comparative Perspective. Princeton University Press. 2009, Democratization in America: A Comparative-Historical Analysis. with Desmond King, Gretchen Ritter, and Laurence Whitehead, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Highly Cited Articles
Volume
96, nº 4, 697-712. 2000, with Greg M. Shaw, Looking inward, looking outward: The politics of state welfare innovation under devolution, in: Political Quarterly. Volume 53, nº 2, 215-240.
2001, with John South. Lapinski, American federalism, race and the administration of welfare, in: British Journal of Political Science. Volume 31, nº 2, 303-329.
2002, Weak state, strong policy: Paradoxes of race policy in the United States, Great Britain, and France, in: Studies in American Political Development.
Volume 16, nº 2, 138-161. 2009, with Desmond King, Ironies of state building: A comparative perspective on the american state, in: World Politics. Volume 61, nº 3, 547-588.
2015, with Fredrick C. Harris, Racial Inequality After Racism: How Institutions Hold Back African Americans, in: Foreign Affairs.
Volume(s) 94, nº 2.
( Shaping Race Policy investigates one of the most serio...)
( Despite the substantial economic and political strides...)
1998, Ideas, institutions, and political order: Explaining political change, in: American Political Science Review.
Member Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Lauren M. Osborne, June 16, 1991. Children: Benjamin, Martha, Aaron.