The Politics of Child Support in America

Explores the topic of policy innovation by examining American child support.

Jocelyn Elise Crowley (Author)

9780521824606, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 August 2003

232 pages, 11 b/w illus. 20 tables
23.7 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.43 kg

"This is a useful and timely contribution to studies of social policy change and should spark other fruitful research."
-Renee Monson, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, American Journal of Sociology

Political observers have long since struggled with understanding how new ideas are placed on the public agenda. In their studies, most social scientists have relied on biographical sketches and intensive case studies to explore the intricacies of innovation. Researchers have had much more difficulty, however, in moving from these individual success stories to more generalizable theories of entrepreneurship. This book builds such a theory by focusing on the critical issue of child support enforcement in the United States. Covering over a 100 year period, this book tracks the evolution of multiple sets of political entrepreneurs as they grapple with the child support problem: charity workers with local law enforcement in the nineteenth century, social workers throughout the 1960s, conservatives during the 1970s, women's groups and women legislators in the 1980s, and fathers' rights groups in the 1990s and beyond.

1. The limits of studying entrepreneurial episodes
2. Child support enforcement: the current system
3. Charity workers and local law enforcement: the beginnings of American child support policy
4. Social workers as challenger entrepreneurs
5. Conservatives as challenger entrepreneurs
6. Women leaders as challenger entrepreneurs
7. Fathers' rights groups as challenger entrepreneurs
8. Innovation and the vibrancy of American entrepreneurship.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Child welfare [JKSB1]