We are currently witnessing a broad-scale attempt to by the Trump Administration to “deconstruct the administrative state.” At such a moment of profound reorientation across so many domains of policy-making, we stand in great of need of historical perspective. This roundtable brings together historians, a political scientist/legal scholar, and two former high legal regulatory officials (one a Democrat, one a Republican), to engage with such questions as: (1) what explains why regulatory endeavors have accumulated so broadly over the last century or so; (2) what has driven the waxing discontent with the regulatory state (among whom, exactly, and on what basis); (3) how best to understand the origins of the emerging, widespread populist distrust of technocracy (distrust that extends beyond those large corporations that want a reduction in regulatory burden); (4) how to make sense of the disconnect between strong popular support for many specific regulatory objectives and much weaker popular support for technocratic governance in general; (5) how best to understand the processes underway at federal agenciesParticipants:
Edward Balleisen, Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, Duke University (chair)
Sally Katzen, Former Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (in the Clinton Administration)
Susan Dudley, Former Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (in the George W. Bush Administration)
Cary Coglianese, Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
Nelson Lichtenstein, Distinguished Professor of History, University of California-Santa Barbara
Christy Ford Chapin, Associate Professor of History, University of Maryland-Baltimore County
Update: The other late breaking sessions are:
Contextualizing Catalonia - the History of Catalan Nationalism and the Spanish Constitution with Respect to the 1st of October
A Fateful Misunderstanding: A Discussion of the Film Documentary The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
Historians and Sexual Harassment: The Challenge for the AHA
Immigration Control and Resistance: Historicizing the Present Moment, a Conversation between Historians and Activists
The North Korean Nuclear Crisis in History
Links are here.