| This dissertation contributes to the empirical and theoretical understanding of president-led institutional change with an examination of the Ronald Reagan presidency. It argues that the Reagan administration refashioned a number of New Deal government institutions while constructing a "voluntary state." As key examples, K--12 education and pollution control regulation policies that were previously mandatory and coercive became, after the Reagan presidency, voluntary and reliant upon cooperative enforcement mechanisms. These findings contribute to theories of American political development; they dispute the notion that late-twentieth-century national institutions resisted structural change, and reveal the influence of exogenous interests like social movements on presidential politics.; This dissertation focuses on two executive departments for study that were particularly opposed by the incoming administration: the Education Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. Under Reagan, both departments received new political appointees, suffered drastic budget cuts, provided new points of access for new interest groups, and were used to promote a new agenda. In fact, many functions of both agencies were transferred to the Department of Justice, an agency which received more support from the administration. This dissertation compares how the EPA, the Education Department, and the Department of Justice were managed by President Reagan.; This Reagan-led policy shift has endured today despite an eight-year period of opposition control of the White House. The government policy agendas for K--12 education and pollution control are still dominated by privatization, less national intervention, and market-based solutions, a package which can be summarized as "voluntarism." This disputes with empirical examples a conclusion in the literature that Reagan did not complete a reconstruction because of institutional thickening. In fact, I present evidence above of new institutions and greatly transformed old ones.; This dissertation also adds a missing piece to presidential regime theory, which does not pay enough attention to the influence of exogenous interests or policy seekers. These interests take the form of organized Washington lobbies, social movements, and electoral blocs. Reagan mobilized interests like the corporate sector and the Christian Right for policy support, but at the same time he accommodated them and smartly managed their potential disturbance of political stability. |
