David Pettinicchio

Politics of Empowerment

Disability Rights and the Cycle of American Policy Reform

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Politics of Empowerment explores why seemingly firmly entrenched policies, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, succumb to opposing forces that seek to undermine them and considers how political entrepreneurship, grassroots activism, and protest relate to one another in mobilizing against these threats.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 280
• Erscheinungstermin: 17. September 2019
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 226mm x 150mm x 23mm
• Gewicht: 454g
• ISBN-13: 9781503609761
• ISBN-10: 1503609766
• Artikelnr.: 53541738

Autorenporträt

David Pettinicchio is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto and affiliated faculty in the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1The Political Evolution of Disability
chapter abstract
Chapter 1 outlines the key tenets of the book's thesis: that disability
rights entered into an already-defined agenda space revolving around social
services and vocational rehabilitation. It did so by way of political
entrepreneurs incrementally carving a path for rights to develop. These
policies empowered a group of Americans once thought of exclusively as
clients deserving of social services to be citizens entitled to civil
rights. But, while it began as an elite-driven movement, disability rights
would soon be threatened by policy rollbacks and retrenchment that
ultimately mobilized a constituency to defend against these attacks. The
political evolution of disability rights therefore provides an opportunity
for contextualizing-in terms of time and space-the relationship between
social movements, political entrepreneurship, policy shifts, and
organizational transformations in the broader struggle for civil rights.
2It's Ability, Not Disability, That Counts
chapter abstract
Chapter 2 further contextualizes the evolution of disability rights by
examining the service-provision-dominated policy agenda in the first half
of the twentieth century. Until the 1960s, a disability policy monopoly
promoted a policy image emphasizing ability over disability-the idea that
rehabilitation was necessary to overcome disability and create "good
citizens." The chapter investigates the kinds of institutional constraints
that prevented any significant policy reforms, requiring elites to pursue
incremental policy changes. Political entrepreneurs championed the removal
of architectural barriers, promoting equal access by using existing
rhetoric about economic self-sufficiency through rehabilitation-and
consequently laying the groundwork for rights to flourish. Ultimately,
their efforts also helped frame the plight of a heterogeneous group as the
common struggle of a community.
3Reshaping the Policy Agenda
chapter abstract
Chapter 3 provides a systematic analysis of the kinds of institutional
changes that helped political entrepreneurs extend the political discourse
around disability to include civil rights. Beginning with the Great
Society, the 1960s and 1970s saw an increasing number of congressional
committees and administrative agencies involved in disability issues. While
this helped gain disability a place on the agenda, it also generated
conflict as different policy frameworks clashed. The chapter draws on the
equal rights to transit debate as an example. Chapter 3 also points to the
consequences of legislative change: that the way actors went about
promoting a new logic around "the problem" of disability shaped policy
outcomes, backlash, and most certainly the tools and motivations available
to a political constituency to push for their rights. And, in mobilizing
against political, economic, and social institutions, the disability rights
movement necessarily challenged cultural understandings and meanings of
disability.
4How Disability Advocacy Made Citizens out of Clients
chapter abstract
Chapter 4 explains how disability organizations and policy coevolved. In
the 1970s, the disability organizational sector underwent an advocacy
explosion, as it adapted to a new rights-focused policy environment.
Existing service-provision groups adopted political advocacy, alongside a
proliferation of new advocacy organizations. The chapter illustrates the
interdependent relationship between disability organizations and political
entrepreneurs in protecting and advancing disability rights, especially
when faced with growing backlash and political threats. Chapter 4 uses the
transit debate, as well as educational mainstreaming, to situate the
growing demand for advocacy as sympathetic elites confronted attempts to
roll back rights. Changes in the disability voluntary sector encouraged the
expansion of new mobilizing structures that would bring activists together.
5Politics Is Pressure
chapter abstract
Chapter 5 looks at the rise of disability protest in the context of
political threats to existing disability rights legislation. The disability
rights movement in the government reflected critical structural and
organizational transformations that politicized a constituency. Political
entrepreneurs supplied the policy instruments around which disability
groups helped mobilize everyday citizens with disabilities to champion
their rights. The use of extra-institutional, disruptive tactics was not
only necessary when institutional means became less available; it also drew
public attention to the kinds of inequality disabled people faced.
Educational mainstreaming, equal access to transit and Medicaid, and
in-home care serve as salient examples of the decades-old unsettled issues
that generated uncertainty and back-stepping, which fueled contentious
politics and mobilized a movement. Chapter 5 points to this critical
transformation in disability rights from an elite-driven movement in the
government to a broader grassroots movement in the streets.
6Empowering the Government
chapter abstract
Chapter 6 returns to the reasons why the disability rights struggle is, to
this day, a story of unresolved policy entrenchment. The chapter highlights
ongoing debates about integrating students with disabilities into regular
classrooms and the continued fight over community-based care-key movement
issues that are in deadlock. The same institutional configurations that
allowed for policy innovation and political entrepreneurship also led to
conflict, obstruction, retrenchment, and undesirable policy consequences.
Indeed, the case of disability rights reveals the ways in which the duality
in America's political institutions creates both the resources and the
motivations for citizen action. The chapter speaks to current efforts to
undermine policies like the ADA that are rooted in their political
development, negotiation, compromise, and lack of enforcement. It also
sheds light on the status of the disability rights movement today and the
importance of citizen engagement in this civil rights struggle.