Comparative Charting of Social Change
1 primary work • 3 total works
Book 5
Recent Social Trends in the United States, 1960-1990
by Theodore Caplow and Howard M. Bahr
Published 31 December 1991
Many of the trends reflect the vigorous continuation of what Tocqueville called "the gradual progress of equality." Much of this progress resulted from successful government programs to reduce social inequality. These same programs expanded the role of government as the initiator and manager of social change. The enlargement of government functions that began in the 1960s and continues to this day, together with corporate and organizational consolidation in the private sector, changed the United States from a decentralized to a highly centralized nation. The transition has been uncomfortable, partly because centralization is not wholly compatible with other democratic values, and partly because American political institutions were originally designed to thwart centralization. This volume documents the trends involved in this transformation.
The authors, using these goals as a checklist, found that each of the seven states performs well in some areas and badly in others. They discovered that all states approached these goals in a style shaped by their own history and, in particular, by how they have been affected by the troubles of the twentieth century. Their investigations offer a new, informative way of looking at these nation states and detail the social and political conditions in each state. Contributors include Theodore Caplow, Salustiano Del Campo (Royal Academy of Political and Social Science, Madrid), Nikolai Genov (Bulgaria Academy of Sciences), Karl-Otto Hondrich (Goethe University), Simon Langlois (Universite de Laval), Alberto Martinelli (University of Milan), and Henri Mendras (OFCE, Paris).