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Reagan and That Unnamed Frenchman (De Tocqueville): On the Rationale for the New (Old) Federalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Catherine H. Zuckert
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Extract

In his 24 September 1981 television address presenting the argument for a second round of budget cuts, President Reagan concluded by citing an old authority:

More than a century ago a Frenchman came to America and later wrote a book for his countrymen telling them what he had seen here. He told them that in America when a citizen saw a problem that needed solving he would cross the street and talk to a neighbor about it and the first thing you know a committee would be formed and before long the problem would be solved. And then he added, “you may not believe this, but not a single bureaucrat would have been involved.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , July 1983 , pp. 421 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1983

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References

1 Congressional Quarterly, 3 October 1981, p. 1922.

2 National Journal, 10 October 1981, p. 1800.

3 Congressional Quarterly, 25 April 1981, p. 708.

4 Citations are to de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, trans. Lawrence, George (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969).Google Scholar

5 Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass., 1965).Google Scholar

6 Dahl, Robert A. and Lindblom, Charles, Politics, Economics, and Welfare (Chicago, 1953), pp. 302–309Google Scholar, is still a classic statement of the pluralist position from which Dahl and Lindblom themselves have moved, as they indicate in the preface to the 1976 edition.

7 Tocqueville, Democracy, pp. 137, 153. See also Lowi, Theodore J., The End of Liberalism (New York, 1969), p. 48Google Scholar, for a brief discussion of the way in which representative institutions combined with larger, diverse constituencies create such “space” between government and society. James Madison's famous argument in Federalist, No. 10, ought to be read the same way.

8 Walker, David, Toward a Functioning Federalism (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

9 See Moynihan, Daniel P., The Politics of a Guaranteed Income (New York, 1972)Google Scholar; Congressional Quarterly, 13 August 1977, pp. 1699–1706; 29 April 1978, pp. 1066–67; 10 June 1978, p. 1514.

10 Aron, Raymond, Main Currents in Sociological Thought (New York, 1965), p. 183.Google Scholar

11 Connolly, William, The Bias of Pluralism (New York, 1971), pp. 4–8.Google Scholar

12 O'Connor, James, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (New York, 1973), pp. 64–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Drescher, Seymour, Dilemmas of Democracy (Pittsburgh, 1968), pp. 76–77Google Scholar; Zeitlin, Irving M., Equality and Revolution in Alexis de Tocqueville (Boston, 1971), pp. 55–56.Google Scholar

14 Moynihan, Daniel P., Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding (New York, 1969).Google Scholar

15 de Tocqueville, Alexis, Recollections, trans. de Mattos, Alexander Teixeira (New York, 1947), pp. 10–13, 64–65.Google Scholar

16 As has Friedan, Betty, The Second Stage (New York, 1981).Google ScholarPubMed

17 See Walker, Federalism, pp. 135–54.

18 Congressional Quarterly, 24 October 1981, p. 2051.

19 National Journal, 27 February 1982, p. 369.

20 Ibid., 19 September 1981, p. 1665.

21 Gallup Poll, 18–21 September 1981.

22 Congressional Quarterly, 25 April 1981, p. 708.

23 See Minneapolis Tribune, editorial, 29 January 1982, p. 8A.