ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the reciprocal relationship between American administrative reform and state building during the immediate post-Reconstruction period through the alleged dissipation of the Progressive reform movement in the aftermath of World War I. It illustrates the continuing impact of America’s initial conditions on these developments, as well as that of changes in the nature of the social, economic, political, cultural, technological, and religious context of America. Reviewed are the strains, conflicts, and dynamics across and within various competing administrative reform ideas (e.g., the Granger, Populist, and Progressive movements), with particular emphasis on progressivism’s links to European socialist movements and their conflict with the US constitutional framework. Also stressed is the continuing, and successful, role played by the corporate–social science nexus of interests in their quests for legitimacy, quests again amplifying the IRP-based agenda of technological progressivism and expansion of the compensatory state. Also discussed again is the further marginalization of vocal elements of the citizenry from these initiatives, spawning calls for the next round of American administrative reform and their rebuttal by opponents.
