1/ Catching up on some reading & I'm enjoying this @RussellSageFdn journal issue on anti-poverty policy. I will use these articles for my fall class on "the Politics of Poverty in the U.S." But here's the thing... rsfjournal.org/toc/rsf/4/3
2/There is scant substantive discussion of politics in this issue. That's not a criticism of the authors, they adeptly tackle subjects within their realms of expertise. The problem is that scholars of American politics have little to say about the politics of anti-poverty policy.
3/ Of course, this is not true of all scholars of American politics. There are a handful of exceptions but there is nothing like the corps of sociologists and economists who pay careful attention to poverty & public policy. This is a real loss.
4/It's a loss b/c we miss a chance to do critically important work. And when the White House spouts falsehoods abt poverty & social welfare policy, we have too few empirically compelling insights on the political causes & consequences of such developments.
5/ The good news for me is that my research agenda is always full and ever expanding. The bad news is that there is much more we need to know than political scientists seem to have an interest in learning. Maybe I'm just being cynical today? I'm happy to be wrong on this one.
