The afterlife of the Great Society: Richard Nixon vs. the permanent government, 1969-1974

Thesis

Richard Nixon assumed the presidency promising to rid the United States of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programmes that he believed had ‘reaped an ugly harvest of frustration, violence, and failure across the land’. Yet despite repeated and determined attempts across five-and-a-half years in office, Richard Nixon’s presidency came and went, and – for the most part – the social programmes of the Great Society persisted. The question which this dissertation seeks to answer, then, is a simple one: why? This question will be answered through an examination of three domestic programmes that began or dramatically expanded during the Great Society – the Legal Services Program, Volunteers in Service to America, and the Food Stamp Program.

The Afterlife of the Great Society argues that true domestic political power in the United States resided in a powerful network of interests that this dissertation terms the Iron Diamond. This Iron Diamond comprises the bureaucracy, Congressional Committee staffers, District Court judges, and public interest lawyers. These actors were each individually powerful in the formulation and implementation of domestic policy, but it is when they work together that their true power is seen. Centering these actors causes us to reconsider the nature of power within the U.S. political system and corrects a historical literature which exaggerates the domestic power of the President.

Authors: Robertson, M

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: political history; bureaucracy; US History; Richard Nixon
• Subjects: Bureaucracy; History--20th century