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Theodore J. Lowi

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The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States Paperback – Illustrated, September 3, 2009

by Theodore J. Lowi (Author)

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This widely read book has become a modern classic of political science.

The main argument which Lowi develops through this book is that the liberal state grew to its immense size and presence without self-examination and without recognizing that its pattern of growth had problematic consequences. Its engine of growth was delegation. The government expanded by responding to the demands of all major organized interests, by assuming responsibility for programs sought by those interests, and by assigning that responsibility to administrative agencies. Through the process of accommodation, the agencies became captives of the interest groups, a tendency Lowi describes as clientelism. This in turn led to the formulation of new policies which tightened the grip of interest groups on the machinery of government.

Print length

332 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

September 3, 2009
Dimensions

6.1 x 1 x 9.3 inches
ISBN-10

1845411129
ISBN-13

978-1845411121
Lexile measure

1380L
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Theodore J. Lowi was John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions at Cornell University. He was elected president of the American Political Science Association in 1990 and was cited as the political scientist who made the most significant contribution to the field during the decade of the 1970s. Among his numerous books are The End of Liberalism and The Pursuit of Justice, on which he collaborated with Robert F. Kennedy.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0393934322
Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; 40th Anniversary edition (September 3, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 332 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1845411129
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1845411121
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1380L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 1 x 9.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #302,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #720 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism
- #1,397 in U.S. Political Science

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4.5 out of 5

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Runamuck

A Ground Breaking Work

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2008

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The poor reviews for this book seem to be centered on the "poor" writing skills of Dr. Lowi, and the "unreadability" of the work. First no one with bad writing skills teaches at universities such as Yale, Harvard, and Cambridge. This book is difficult for the layman because of some of the language used is unique to his discipline. But if this book is too hard for you to understand due to its complexity then don't worry about graduate school. Aside from this Dr. Lowi has written a wonderful book with concepts and models still used today. In fact there are at least two questions on the GRE test in the Political Science part that come directly out of this book. I won't lie this is a difficult read, but profound. It explains the evolution of U.S. government and it's citizens, and their relationships between each other and the development of liberalism. This book sets the stage for how Reagen was able to become elected and leave such an impact on the American psyche.

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jlovegren

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2015

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Product as described and timely arrived.

Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2003

I should confess that I was surprised when I happened to see that the reviewers have expressed some critical concerns about the writing style of Lowi and the core message the author attempts to convey in the book. First, I would like to say that the book generally, although difficult to follow in some pages, bears a very clear message and hypothesis that provide the basic conceptual and mental framework if one reads through the first chapter carefully. I will try to summarize the leading argument of Lowi within some lines.
Lowi is primarily concerned with political transformation in the United States, which his analysis demonstrates has started in the 1930s and had been continuing through the time in which the book was published. What Lowi calls interest group liberalism (IGL) refers to an offshoot of a new public philosophy called pluralism. Pluralist ideology favors a dispersion of power centers so that no group can control governmental power totally in order to impose authoritative decisions on others. In order not to let any group to dominate the public realm, the pluralist ideology emphasizes broad and extensive public participation to determine what kind of public policies will be crafted and pursued rather than granting entire authority of policy making to central government (say, the Congress). According to Lowi, this strong belief encourages devolution of public authority (the authority to make laws and designate specific standards), in a broad and unguided manner, to public bureaucracies in order for a broad number of participants can partake in the process of policy making, for the sake of flexibility. In a nutshell, the new public philosophy is "process" oriented, not goal or substance-oriented. According to Lowi, there is not even space for law that supporters of new public philosophy argue is so authoritative. However, Lowi's meticulous analysis of political development of the United States shows the reader that this process-oriented public philosophy led the way for public bureaucracies to be captured by organized and strong interest groups.
According to Lowi, the pluralist conception and practice of government does great harm, when one considers its far-reaching consequences. "Flexibility and legitimacy could only have been reduced by building representation upon the oligopolistic character of interest groups, reducing the number of competitors, favoring the best organized competitors, specializing politics around agencies, ultimately limiting participation to channels provided by pre-existing groups" (p. 63). One needs to focus on this sentence carefully just to understand why Lowi expresses a very critical concern about interest group liberalism (IGL). IGL breaks the essential tie between government and politics, and reduces politics into a very narrow space populated and dominated by interest groups around agencies (public or not, the distinction doesn't have much meaning in IGL) that are given authority to implement (or make) policies.
Providing too many a convincing example, Lowi demonstrates that this pluralist process has taken momentum in the 1930s, which manifested itself in the changing "language" of laws (social security is a good example). Since then, the laws have begun to be imbued with ambiguous language that provides no specific standard that would guide the administration to make consistent decisions. According to Lowi, the move from concreteness to abstractness in the definition of public policy represents a watershed in the political development of the United States: interest group liberalism is substituted for the rule of law. Thus, laws lose their unique character as instruments for public control: what is practiced is policy without law, according to Lowi. From social policy, to urban policy, and even to foreign policy, Lowi provides an impressive analysis to illustrate the unceasing impact of new public philosophy. In his cases, what is seen, by and large, are policies, implementation of which are devolved to a great number of agencies, without having any concern to develop a consistent and purposeful policy based on the supremacy of law. The most interesting claim is that this broad and unguided delegation of public authority showed a continuity regardless of who comes to power, Republicans or Democrats, according to Lowi. At the very least, his analysis attests to this continuity.
Finally, Lowi offers some cures in order to improve the current situation. First, the author urges a comprehensive codification in order to reassure legal integrity. Second, Lowi recommends a return to a strong juridicial democracy within which legal formality and administrative procedures take a strong hold.
Within the book's conceptual framework, the arguments sound persuasive. There is one point that I would like to question. Lowi argues that IGL is a product of pluralist ideology and manifests itself in the ambigous language of laws. However, it is certainly possible that we left behind the age in which we had certain questions, and to which we had certain answers. In an age in which there is a high degree of ambiguity, it is extremely difficult to enact very unambiguous laws. In sum, the change in the language of laws may be a natural and direct consequence of what has been changing in the larger environment. Also, the fact that the move from concreteness to abstractness in the definition of public policy occurs in many countries spanning many continents reinforces the conviction that IGL may not peculiarly be a problem for the United States. Lowi makes no visible reference to this alternative rationale of why laws began to be very ambiguous.
To be honest, the book is more comprehensive than what I tried to recap here. Although I am not primarily engaged in political science, I always need a political source that would help me make sense with what is happening or not happening in the contemporaneous American "public administration", and Lowi's book provides a great help for me. I read this book some time ago with primary intention of enlarging my perspective with regard to legitimacy issue in public administration. I can say that this book provides good insights about legitimacy of public administration and should make a great contribution to understanding of public administration students.
Overall, this book is a very illuminating source on American politics and I highly recommend. Also, to those who complain of writing style of Lowi, I recommend "The Human Condition" by Hannah Arendt (1958/1998) and "The Postmodern Condition" (1979) by Lyotard, in order for them to be fair about The End of Liberalism by Lowi!

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julesian

An Undergraduate Perspective

Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2005

The long review made by another reviewer (below) is nice (and I did not read most of it since I am very familiar with Lowi), however, it is untrue that Lowi did not spend time considering the possibility that the modern world is inherently ambiguous. Lowi makes it clear that this position is just an excuse; he does not make it too clear why, but from my own experience I agree with him. It makes little sense to consider the modern world any more ambiguous or difficult to understand than it may have been at previous times and indeed it should be less so today since we know much more about reality and have much more experience. Reading Hayek's "Law, Legislation, and Liberty" (all 3 volumes) along side of Lowi's "End of Liberalism" and "End of the Republican Era" it is clear that technical complexity is only an excuse for those who do not want to confront the tough decisions that frequently appear in governing (and life in general). And that is, of course, the point of "End of Liberalism"; that Interest-Group Liberalism (and Hayek supports this in LLL) is the ideological (not logical) argument that allows government officials to delegate power, authority, and ultimately responsibility and legitimacy (or rather, these latter attributes are lost all together). There are two important things to remember: 1) Lowi is saying that Interest-Group Liberalism is a trend that will eventually lead to x, y, z, and 2) that his examples are of events/places where x, y, z have already happened. In "End of the Republican Era" Lowi makes it clear that Interest-Group Liberalism is no longer the dominant ideology in the United States while its effects can still be seen. (General note: I have not read all of the reviews here, only the first few that are showed automatically by amazon.com).

Anyway, "End of Liberalism" is not a difficult text. The reviewer below is definitely correct about that. If "End of Liberalism" is too complicated to read for you then you should not go to grad school and I hope that you do not become or that you are not already a person who wields a good deal of discretionary power. Reading and thinking are two of the greatest resources in the human experience and to be hindered in them by a lack of hard work and by excuses like 'its too complicated' is highly unfortunate and is one of the largest and most distressing of empirical realities today since it is such that underlies the so-called 'ambiguity' of modren reality and the lack of responsibility among humans in the West.

I am an undergraduate student at Albion College, Albion, Michigan. I give "End of Liberalism" five stars because I think it is the best I have read in combining empirical data with an historical argument (I am, however, very hesitant). I would like to note that Richard Bensel's critique of Lowi and Hayek (in his 1980 journal article) is flawed in many respects and that I have been unable to find any other critiques, although, I have not yet had time to look very much. I would also like to thank my professor Dr. Andrew Grossman for making me read "End of Liberalism" and for always using theoretical political language in his classes even though most of my peers complain. Language is the most important tool a human possesses and it ought to be the most highly developed and frequently reflected upon.

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Unreadably small print

Reviewed in Canada on December 17, 2020

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This book would give headaches to a 20 year old, not that many will want to read it. For older eyes, a powerful magnifying glass is needed. The thing is basically a super small font photocopy sold as a mass market paperback. Buy it if you need a chore and like headaches. I can’t comment on the content because I can’t read it.

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