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Theda Skocpol and Policy History

These two books—the first a study of the National Recovery Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration of the New Deal, the second a collection of previously published essays concerning social policies (mainly in the United States)—offer a useful vantage point from which to evaluate the contributions of Theda Skocpol, a leading scholar concerned with the formation and implementation of public policy. Readers who are familiar with her previous work will not be surprised to discover that she emphasizes the role of state-centered actors and bureaucracies in the policymaking process. They will also recognize her special concern with theoretical issues and comparative perspectives; in both books she and her collaborators seek not only to explore historical developments but also to evaluate the explanatory utility of theories of politics in advanced capitalist democracies. In State and Party, Skocpol and Finegold assert clearly at the start that historians can best understand the NRA and AAA by employing a "historical institutionalise stateand party-centered approach" (xiv). Theirs is a structuralist perspective stressing the role that "state intermediation" (50) plays in influencing both the nature and outcome of public policies