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Afterword: A Legacy of State-Building Ethan G. Sribnick This volume provides a starting point for evaluating the role of American governors in shaping public policy. The chapters above document the central role governors played in confronting many of the major challenges faced by the American republic. Together, however, these essays demonstrate more than just the role of governors in directing policy over the twentieth century; they also highlight the role of governors in developing the very institutions of American government. While historians and political scientists continue to debate the nature of American state-building the essays in this volume highlight the importance of states and, particularly, governors in this process. Over the past hundred years, this process of state-building unfolded in various ways. Sometimes governors and state governments created new institutions that were later adopted by the federal government. Ron Haskins has explained how Progressive Era mothers’ pensions were later incorporated into the federal Social Security Act and how, in the 1990s, state social policy experiments became the basis for national welfare reform. In other cases governors have innovated in the spaces left open by federal inaction. Governors such as Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, Sarah Phillips has noted, led the nation in the attempt to curb greenhouse gases. As Colleen M. Grogan and Vernon K. Smith have reported, governors such as Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts have, at various times, taken command of the effort to expand health insurance coverage. In many instances American government has been formed by a convoluted combination of state and federal power. Ajay Mehrotra and David Shreve have recounted the century-long struggle of governors to find effective methods of revenue collection in light of the federal system of taxation. Jason Sokol has uncovered instances in which governors turned to the federal courts to provide political cover in the painful process of racial integration. The chapters by Jon C. Teaford and Brooke Masters demonstrate how governors, by instituting policies to enhance 232 Afterword the economic stature of their states, enhanced the national economy. At times, state-building has occurred through explicit cooperation between state and federal government. As both Robert Jay Dilger and Maris A. Vinovskis have explained, governors have been central players in working with the federal government to develop systems of transportation and education across the nation. In all these ways, governors have bequeathed a legacy of innovation. This legacy continues; governors remain active participants in shaping and reforming the American polity to meet the needs of both today and the future. More than ever, governors now work to make their states thrive, not only in a national context, but also in an international one. In a time of increasing globalization, governors stand on the front lines of efforts by their states and the entire nation to maintain a vital role in the world. With the threat of terrorism made abundantly clear by the events of September 11, 2001, governors now prepare for the possibility of their states becoming a battleground in an international struggle. If history provides any indication, governors will guide the responses to these public policy challenges. Through leadership within their states, through cooperation with other governors, and through partnership with the federal government, governors will continue to shape the American nation. ...

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