Introduction: New Directions in Policy History

The state of policy history is good. This is a dramatic change from only four years ago, when I started an article in this very journal about the evolution of policy history by asserting: "The future of policy history remains unclear."¹ At the time, my statement reflected the sentiment shared by many fellow policy historians who did not feel that professional opportunities had fully caught up with the intellectual vitality of the subfield.

But by the year 2004, the quality and the volume of scholarship have reached unprecedented levels. The Journal of Policy History and Studies in American Political Development offer innovative articles on a large variety of periods, issues, and actors. The lists of prestigious university presses that are publishing work on the evolution of domestic and foreign policy continues to expand at a brisk pace. Since it was founded in 1999, the Policy History Conference has become a routine trip for those in the subfield as it has been jam packed with exciting interdisciplinary panels.² Top graduate programs are filled with students interested in the relationship between state and society. Many scholars in sub-fields that were born out of the social history revolution have now turned their attention back to the public-political realm. As a result of this interest, there has even been a notable spike in the number of departments hiring political—often defined as policy—historians.

The road to success has not been easy. Policy history emerged in the 1970s through a group of maverick historians who sought to produce scholarship that would influence the decisions of government officials, the training of policy experts, as well as the historical profession. The founding generation included academic historians who were disenchanted with the move of their profession away from the study of government and formal politics. The founders likewise consisted of public historians who were seeking to write scholarship that appealed to those outside the academy. Many of these scholars came together at a conference at the Harvard Business School in 1978, convened by Professors Tom McGraw and Morton Keller. This landmark conference was the first time that practitioners came to see themselves as part of a distinct sub-field. Since then, policy historians have written about such issues as the institutional and cultural patterns that effected policy over time, the soundness of conventional assumptions about the past, the influence of political culture on public policy, and the evolution of the policymaking process.³

There have been many landmark moments since the 1970s. In 1984, for instance, Tom McGraw won the Pulitzer Prize for his book on the history of economic regulation in the twentieth century.⁴ Professors Ernest May and Richard Neustadt taught one of the most popular classes at Harvard University's prestigious Kennedy School of Government that focused on the applied uses of historical policy analysis. Based on their class, their book entitled Thinking In Time inspired many students and teachers to appreciate how historical analysis had practical value to public officials.⁵ In 1987, Donald Critchlow announced the formation of The Journal of Policy History, which became the premier outlet for this research. By the early-1990s, there were numerous scholars whose work made policy central to their study.⁶

Despite these accomplishments, members of the sub-field confronted obstacle after obstacle. During their first two decades as a sub-field, policy historians were unable to secure a foothold in the mainstream of any profession. Most policy schools did not employ historians in the 1980s and early-1990s, because their programs generally privileged economics and organizational studies. Policy historians did not help matters by abandoning the applied spirit that animated their founders.

The historical profession, moreover, maintained its emphasis on studying social life and popular culture from "the bottom up." Government elites, institutions, and public policies were of marginal concern. In this atmosphere, the major historical publishing outlets such as The American Historical Review and Journal of American History only accepted a minimal number of works related to policy. Attendees at the Organization of American Historians or American Historical Association Conferences were more likely to see panels...