The Governance Of The U.s. Progressive Era :1890-1920

In the end of the 19th century the United States began to transform into capitalist society with the main features of industrialization and urbanization. The restructuring of the economy was accompanied by significant and profound changes of social and political structures. Especially with the laissez-faire policy of the government, the over-reliance and indulgence of the government on market behavior lead to a serious disorder and out of control during the economic development situation. Such a change made corporate hegemony gradually form, directly aroused market failure, and increased political corruption , caused anomie. With the market failure and government failure existed at the same time, to protect economic freedom and social justice, during the end of the 19th century and early 20th century a far-reaching reform movement, i.e. Progressive Movement started in the United States. And this period of time is called the Progressive Era. The Progressive Movement is a Plural Governance movement with the aim of protecting social justice. It is participated in and promoted by all the communities and the government. The government exercise their functions and powers of meta-governance during the Progressive Era. This played a role to turn the tide for the healthy and harmonious development of the United States.At the beginning of the Progressive Movement, the government adopted a Laissez-faire policy and failed to timely make the responsiveness to the needs of treatment of the society. To resolve the social problems aroused by industrialization, all walks of life began the heterarchic governance. But during the transforming of the society the old adjustment mechanism had been destroyed and the new one longing for making, with the absence of the power of integrating interests and governance mechanisms, differences of the interests and the differentiation of the management target weakened the management power of the self-organizing "heterarchy", obstructed self-organizing "heterarchy" effectively restrict the well-organized corporate hegemony. As a result, the initially set goal of social justice can not be realized in the whole society.To restrict the corporate hegemony, maintain the economic freedom and social justice and rebuild the balance of the countervailing power an mandatory or authoritative government was needed. During the mid-and late period of the Progressive Movement the mainstream ideology of the society began to change. The ideology of non-interference began to decline, and meanwhile, the new ideology settled a legit basement for the government of the United States from negative state to positive state. Based on the "neutral" state , the government realized the expansion of the power in the framework of democratic political system and undertake the duty of meta-governance as the positive achiever of social interests and defender of social justice. The meta-governance appeared because the government should undertake the duty of protecting the integrity of the system of social institutions and social cohesion. Exercising the powers of meta-governance, the government can play a macro-controlling role of integrating the interests and governance mechanisms. The government can not only provide the systematic basement and protection for hierarchic governance but also provide remedial measure in the case of governance failure of the social subsystem and promote the development of multi-governance effectiveness.In the Progressive Era the expansion of governance was mainly expressed the expansion of executive power under the mechanism of the balance of power. With the emergence of presidential powers such as Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, the federal government was taken as an effective institution for the benefit of the public again. More and more governance was transferred from the state government to the federal government. The federal government effectively exercised the meta-governance through carrying out system changes and innovation of overall governance through the economic, political and social areas and strengthening government control; efficiently dealt with the issue of market anomie through economic reform and strengthening the government's economic control; helped the government get from the shadow of the failure through political reform, punishing political corruption and expanding civil and political rights, the failure of the government emerging from the shadow of; helped the society shift from a disorder state to an order one through strengthening social regulation, increasing cultivation of social morality and civic responsibility, enhancing public spirit of citizens as well as the capacity of democratic participation and social order gradually and orderly.In the Progressive Era, due to different era responsibilities, institutional arrangements and institutional changes showed distinct features. First, the goal of the institution changes was no longer weakening the authority of government, but expanding of government power to form an effective holding of the company's hegemony, and truly safeguard and protect the civil rights of democratic society. Second, with the decline of the doctrine of laissez-faire, the Government began to act as the First Act Group, become important actors in promoting institutional change. Therefore, the system change in the Progressive Era is interactive process of a "bottom-up" system demand and "top-down" system supply, Induced Institution Changes before, but giving priority to Mandatory change of institution. Third, a mandatory institution change of the Progressive Era started at the federal, state and local level. The mandatory institution changes, carried out by the state and local governments were the important factor of regional institutional change and to influenced and promoted the institutional arrangements of the federal government in a "bottom-up" way. While the mandatory institution changes, carried out by the federal government were universal national institutional arrangements and dominated the process of institution changes of the whole country in a "top-down" way.The governance of the Progressive Era established the common goals and basic rules for the multi-governance and laid the foundation for the power against the corporate hegemony so that it promoted the improvement of the balance of the market economy and democracy. This shows that in the process of pursuing social progress the governance is not only responsible for maintaining and promoting the healthy development of market economy but also undertake the responsibility of coordinating and integrating forces of economy and politics and change the economic well-being, created by the market economy into democratic development power and ultimately promote the overall progress of human society.Based on the longitudinal analysis of governance process in the era of economic, political, social areas of the Progressive Era, this dissertation has made a horizontal theoretical summary of governance in the background of the times from the micro, meso, macro level. From the micro-level it is revealed that as a meta-governance among multi-governance through integrating governance mechanisms governance plays a role of macro-controlling, which social heterarchic governance does not have. From the meso level it is revealed that institution changes affects the power configuration and positioning among main powers and governance can reshape the balance of power and system through fair institution arrangements and change, which is the basis of governance. From the macro level it is revealed that the governance in the Progressive Era is a progressive aimed at promoting democracy improvement and the governance can play a role of balancing the development of market economy and democratic politics.