The Library
What was the original intent? The Tea Party movement, the Founding Fathers, and the American welfare state
Tools
Eastland-Underwood, Jessica (2023) What was the original intent? The Tea Party movement, the Founding Fathers, and the American welfare state. Journal of Political Ideologies, 28 (2). pp. 219-237. doi:10.1080/13569317.2021.1956758 ISSN 1356-9317.
|
PDF
WRAP-What-was-original-intent-tea-party-movement-founding-fathers-American-welfare-state-2021.pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (577Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2021.1956758
Abstract
Many scholars have cautioned against over-emphasizing the role of culture and values in the unique structure of the American welfare state. In this article, I argue that the Tea Party movement is an exceptional example of how values attributed to the founding of the American nation are used as a cultural schema to legitimize arguments and to mobilize political actors to constrain the perception of available welfare policy options. Using the Wayback Machine, I have built a bespoke archive of rhetoric from Tea Party chapter websites in 2009 to 2011, outlining the values the Tea Party attributes to the Founding Fathers. I provide a more nuanced history of the Founding Era in order to expose the selective scope of Tea Party history, exaggerating certain ideas while neglecting others. Adapting a pragmatic historiographical method, I argue that this historical narrative illuminates the less socially desirable motivations of both the elite and everyday actors in the Tea Party: free market ideology and latent racial animus. As such, I conclude that cultural values ought to remain an important area of research, particularly identifying how modern political actors co-opt history and national identity to legitimize partisan ideological claims, particularly in the arena of welfare policy.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Subjects: | E History America > E151 United States (General) H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare J Political Science > JC Political theory J Political Science > JK Political institutions (United States) |
||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Tea Party movement -- United States, Founding Fathers of the United States , Public welfare -- United States , Welfare state -- United States | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Political Ideologies | ||||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||||
ISSN: | 1356-9317 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 2023 | ||||||||
Dates: |
|
||||||||
Volume: | 28 | ||||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 219-237 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1080/13569317.2021.1956758 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | โThis is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Political Ideologies on 23/07/2021, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13569317.2021.1956758 | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 26 July 2021 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 23 January 2023 |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year