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Political Time Reconsidered

Unbuilding and Rebuilding the State Under the Reagan Administration

University of California, San Francisco

Andrew J. Polsky

Hunter College; Graduate Center, CUNY

This article addresses the claim that the thickening of institutions in American national politics has reduced the capacity of partisan governing coalitions or regimes to introduce fundamental changes. We seek here to clarify what partisan regimes can accomplish under contem porary conditions. We find that in certain respects, regimes have acquired increased capacity for change by making use of the tools of the administrative presidency. In the two cases we study, the Reagan administration disrupted enforcement of pollution laws and transformed the national education agenda. The record of lasting accomplishments by the Reagan Republican regime, although underappreciated in the political science literature, indicates that regime builders in the modern era do not face intractable obstacles in the form of a thickened institutional context. What emerges from this analysis is a portrait of partisan regimes operatingin the modernpolitical environment that depicts them as effective, flexible but not omnipotent governing instruments.

Key Words: American political development • Reagan presidency • environmental protection • partisan regimes • education policy

American Politics Research, Vol. 33, No. 4, 577-605 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1532673X04270520


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