An interview with Theda Skocpol: I Have Always Been Part of Both the Sociology and the Political Science Profession (English Version)

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1 INTER VIEW An interview with Theda Skocpol: I Have Always Been Part of Both the Sociology and the Political Science Profession (English Version) Theda SKOCPOL Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University (Massachusetts, USA) skocpol@fas.harvard.edu Theda SKOCPOL is among the most influential and cited sociologist and political science scholar since 1980s. She is primarly known for her work on revolutions. Prof. Skocpol was Director of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University ( ), Senior Advisor in the Social Sciences at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study ( ), President of the American Political Science Association ( ). In 2007, Theda Skocpol was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science (an analogue of a Nobel Prize for Political Science scholars) for her visionary analysis of the significance of the state for revolutions, welfare, and political trust, pursued with theoretical depth and empirical evidence 1. In 2008, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Theda Skocpol is an author of ten books; her books and articles have been rewarded with prestigious scholar awards. Your Harvard webpage says, you have recently launched new projects on the development of US higher education and on the transformations of US federal policies in the Obama era 2. Could you provide us with more details? What are your goals? What outcomes do you expect to get? I m somebody who bridges between sociology and political science. I ve assembled the team of historical and institutional-minded political sociologists and political scientists, and we re doing a sort of a historical overview of the Obama administration as it happens. So what we re doing is we re looking at the 2008 election and what Barack Obama as a candidate and as a new president set out to do: to change the direction of the U.S. domestic policy overall and in a series of key areas such as health care 3, higher education policy, labor policy, immigration policy, environmental policy, and revenues to medicate on First published in Russian: Krylov D., Loginov G I Have Always Been Part of Both the Sociology and the Political Science Profession An Interview with Theda Skocpol. Economic Sociology. 05 (11): Visit: Hereinafter notes made by DK & GL. 2 Visit: 3 Prof. Skocpol expressed her opinion about Health Care Reform and possible outcomes for the U.S. economy and society in an interview to The New Times weekly (visit: 19

2 the inequality and to shift the direction of government intervention. Then we re asking what they are trying to do and what happened. What do the interest groups do, what does U.S. Congress do, what do parties and other forces do. What succeeds and what fails, what it tells us about the state of American politics and governance now? That s a very exciting project and we re working on that, and I expect to be writing about that over the next year or so. In a longer term sense I want to look at the evolution of systems of higher education in different countries. We know that historically the U.S. developed one of the most effective systems of the higher education in the whole world. And that it brought a lot of people into college and a lot of people got college degrees. It combined broad access with excellence in promoting world-class research. That s less true in the last several decades: access is declining in the USA and there are all kinds of challenges that all university systems in all nations face about continuing to support cutting-edge research in the universities. So I want to look at the big picture: how the U.S. system has evoked, how public and private institutions, state and national governments, and private interests intercepted to shape this system. Probably I will try to make some comparisons to Europe, maybe to China, which is expanding its higher education system in an incredible way. It s very interesting to see how they re going about that in a different kind of political system. I m not sure where that project will take me. Theoretically I find it interesting, because as I always do, it looks at policies and interests and institutions and inequality. But it s a different kind of problem than studying revolutions or welfare states. Because it places the emphasis on understanding how systems of organizations interact and I don t know whether we ve got good theories for dealing with that in the social sciences. So I will be able to make some theoretical contributions and also talk about real world problems. Bringing the State Back In scholarly project has moved forward since 1985 [Evans, Rueschemeyer, Skocpol 1985]. Could you name the most influential theoretical and then empirical works, done by scholars for the last 15 years? And why they so influential? I think there have been an extraordinary amount of work since that book was published in It argued for taking state seriously in the sense of organizations that have actors with goals, resources, and their own right. It also argued for looking at the way in which the activities and the structure of the state helps to shape social groups, their alliances and involvement in politics. There is a rich literature on the evolution of the Western welfare states and the ways in which established welfare policies feedback into shaping public opinion and group alliances in politics. I would point to somebody like Andrea Campbell 4 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology looking at social security or Suzanne Mettler 5 at Cornell University who looked at the G.I. Bill 6 and how it shaped the citizenship of a generation of Americans [Mettler 2005]. 4 Andrea Louise Campbell is a Hayes Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science Department at MIT. Her two books are under advanced contract from Princeton University Press [Campbell, Forthcoming] and from Oxford University Press [Campbell, Morgan, Forthcoming]. 5 Suzanne Mettler is a Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions of Department of Government at Cornell. Her recent books are: [Hacker, Mettler 2007; Mettler 2005; Mettler 1998]. 6 The G.I. Bill is a Servicemen s Readjustment Act of 1944 that provided benefits to World War II veterans: Through the Veterans Administration (VA), the bill provided grants for school and college tuition, low-interest mortgage and small-business loans, job training, hiring privileges, and unemployment payments. Amendments to the act provided for full disability coverage and the construction of additional VA hospitals. Later legislation extended the benefits to all who had served in the armed forces ( 20

3 There's a lot of research on how states helped to shape social capital, and some of that is comparative and historical, looking at other nations. There is a big literature on revolutions, what causes them and what prevents them and how they turn out. That, I would say, helped to inspire my book States and Social Revolutions [Skocpol 1979] 7. Could you name books on welfare state that you use in your courses? I mentioned Andrea Campbell, and I think her book How Policies Make Citizens [Campbell 2003] is a very good example of policy feedback research. Jacob Hacker at Yale University wrote The Divided Welfare State, looking at how the pattern of public and private social insurance programs shapes politics about the future of those programs [Hacker 2002] 8. In the case of comparative revolutions, Timothy Wickham's book on Latin American revolutions and the types of regimes that were susceptible to revolutionary overthrows versus the ones that maybe just had military cues or just defeated revolutionary contenders is very good [Wickham-Crowley 1992] 9. There's a big literature on states and markets, Kathleen Thelen at MIT and Peter Hall at Harvard 10, who work on the ways in which government programs for regulating the economy help to shape the involvement of business and labor in politics. What is, in your opinion, the common ground for political science, political sociology and political economy in investigating the role of state in economy? In other words, do you read articles, books or papers, written by new political economists, like Andrei Shleifer 11, for example? Sure, I do. I think there is a lot of common ground between political sociology and political science, when you get to the issues of comparative politics and especially the role of the state in the economy. I attend conferences where we don t even pay much attention to which disciplines people are in 12. I ve always been part of both the sociology and the political science profession. And what about political economy approach in economic sociology? Some scholars, for example, Peter Evans, Neil Fligstein, Fred Block and many others make attempts to study the state influence on economic life. 7 This book was translated into nine languages, and won two major scholarly awards: the 1980 American Sociological Association Award for a Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship and the 1979 C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. The book is cited as among the most influential books in Political Science and Sociology and considered to be one of the most significant works of Historical Sociology of the current era [Hobden 1998:70]. It was the first published book of Prof. Skocpol. 8 Jacob Hacker is the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science Department at Yale. His recent books are: [Hacker, Pierson 2010; Hacker 2006]. 9 Timothy Wickham-Crowley is an Associate Professor of Department of Sociology at Georgetown University. His recent books are: [Eckstein, Wickham-Crowley 2003a; Eckstein, Wickham-Crowley 2003b]. 10 Kathleen Thelen is a Ford Professor of Political Science Department at MIT. Her recent books are: [Mahoney, Thelen 2010; Streeck, Thelen 2005; Thelen 2004]. Peter Hall is Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies at Harvard. His recent books are: [Hall, Lamont, 2009; Culpepper, Palier, Hall 2006; Hall, Soskice 2001]. 11 Andrei Shleifer is a Professor of Economics at Harvard. He is among the most cited economists according to RePEc ( 12 See, for example: [Kohli et others 1995]. 21

4 Peter Evans is a very good example of somebody who s just a pioneer in the study of the role of the state in economic development. He and I were obviously collaborators and remain friends. I think he s first-rated. All those people that you ve mentioned are doing very important work, and are examples of what I mean when I say political sociology, political economy and sociology are very close to what s going on in political science. A social science doesn t necessary respect disciplinary boundaries when you come to major theoretical perspectives. There may be somewhat different labels or certain topics that are fashionable in one discipline or another. But you could look at rational choice as something that cuts across political science and economics, political economy and institutional state society cut across sociology and political science. So it s really not a disciplinary matter. In TPMCafe blog you wrote that you support Obama strongly because he gave you even more right to say what you think 13. Could you comment on this? I don t ever worry about saying what I think. I may have been referring to the fact that after I stepped down from being a dean 14, I felt free to comment on political blogs and I do. I mean that s not the same thing as my scholarship. I m a scholar and I m a teacher, I m not a partisan. But in political blogs like TPMCafe I m making political arguments 15, I draw on my scholarship, and that s something I find much more enjoyable and relevant to do when there s a democratic president. George W. Bush wasn t interested in anything I might have to say. In this way could you comment why President Obama has been losing his support from the beginning of his term, and on March 2010 only 46% of Americans approve his politics whereas 49% disapprove, as the Gallup public opinion surveys show 16? That depends on who you look at. Some polls show him in the low 50s. I think he certainly has gone down from the very high levels of approval right after his election that happens to all popular presidents: they lose support during the first year. And presidents who face a big economic downturn like this one does, will lose even more. 13 See more here: Prof. Skocpol earned her PhD at Harvard in Up to 1981 she was an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Sociology at Harvard. Between 1981 and 1984 she was an Associate Professor of Sociology and Political Science, and of Social Science in the College at the University of Chicago. In 1986 Harvard offered her a tenured position, and Prof. Skocpol accepted it. That s how she became the first ever for a female sociologist at tenured position professor at Harvard. Prof. Skocpol was a Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University from 2005 to I am a center LEFTIST, wrote Theda Skocpol in TPMCafe blog, There is very little center in the political system as a whole, but that does not prevent me from being what I am: in European terms, a moderate social democrat; in US historical terms, a New Deal liberal (more concerned with socioeconomic inclusion than with rights issues). What I am puts me toward the left of the existing Democratic Party, but not the far left ( ). 16 The latest public opinion survey by Gallup show that only 47% of Americans agree with Barack Obama s policy while 50% of population disagree, as of October

5 Obama s been doing pretty well actually. I think he s going to gain a bit over the next year, and I think he probably will be reelected, simply because the Republican Party does not put up serious contenders. You can ask people now Would you vote for Barack Obama or a Republican?, and if you ask it that way, it s about a tie. But if you name any of the actual Republicans, like Sarah Palin, or Mitt Romney, or Tim Pawlenty 17 --he bits them all! In the end the Republicans will have to nominate an actual person. So I think he ll do fine but here s the rob: the economy is not recovering quickly. We know that economic downturn caused by financial collapse often result in a slow recovery of employment levels. Unemployment is a very serious problem in American society. Americans even more than Europeans believe you have to be working. I don t know whether the Democrats and Barack Obama are going to be able to do the things that are necessary to increase the employment rate very rapidly. I m not sure they know what to do and I m not sure that the Republicans would let them do it if they knew. So prolonged unemployment is going to be a big political problem for the Democrats in Congress, and of course for the country. Interview made by Dmitry Krylov and Georgy Loginov Cambridge, March 29, 2010 Literature Campbell A How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Campbell A. Forthcoming. How Americans Think about Taxes: Public Opinion and the American Fiscal State. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Campbell A., Morgan K. Forthcoming. The Delegated Welfare State: Medicare, Markets, and the Governance of Social Provision. New York: Oxford University Press. Culpepper P., Hall P., Palier B. (eds.) Changing France: The Politics that Markets Make. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Eckstein S., Wickham-Crowley T. (eds.). 2003a. What Justice? Whose Justice? Fighting for Fairness in Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Eckstein S., Wickham-Crowley T. (eds.). 2003b. Struggles for Social Rights in Latin America. New York: Routledge. Evans P., Rueschemeyer D., Skocpol T. (eds.) Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 17 Sarah Palin was the Governor of Alaska from 2006 to She was a nominee for Vice President of the USA by the Republican Party in Mitt Romney was the Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to He is also a Republican Party politician and the most likely nominee at the moment for the 2012 president election. Tim Pawlenty is the Governor of Minnesota since In summer 2009 he claimed that he would not seek re-election in 2010, so there is an opportunity that he would fight for the 2012 president election. 23

6 Hacker J., The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hacker J., The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: Oxford University Press. Hacker J., Mettler S., Soss J. (eds.) Remaking America: Democracy and Public Policy in an Age of Inequality. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press. Hacker J., Pierson P Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. Simon & Schuster. Hall P., Lamont M. (eds.) Successful Societies: The Social Origins of Health and Capabilities. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hall P., Soskice D. (eds.). Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hobden S International Relations and Historical Sociology: Breaking Down Boundaries. London: Routledge Mahoney J., Thelen K. (eds.) Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mettler S Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation. CITY. Oxford University Press. Mettler S Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism in New Deal Public Policy. CITY. Cornell University Press. Kohli A., Evans P., Katzenstein P., Przeworski A., Rudolph S., Scott J., Skocpol T The Role of Theory in Comparative Politics: A Symposium. World Politics. 1(48); Skocpol T States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Streeck W., Thelen K. (eds.) Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thelen K How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wickham-Crowley T Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 24