The Submerged State

“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler’s provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them? The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens. Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.” In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market. As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry. Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality. Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms—student aid, tax relief, and health care—to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them. She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans. The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work—or even whether they benefit from them. Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process.

Americans’ relationship to the federal government is paradoxical. Polls show that public opinion regarding the government has plummeted to all-time lows, with only one in five saying they trust the government or believe that it operates in their interest. Yet, at the same time, more Americans than ever benefit from some form of government social provision. Political scientist Suzanne Mettler calls this growing gulf between people’s perceptions of government and the actual role it plays in their lives the "government-citizen disconnect." In The Government-Citizen Disconnect, she explores the rise of this phenomenon and its implications for policymaking and politics. Drawing from original survey data which probed Americans’ experiences of 21 federal social policies -- such as food stamps, Social Security, Medicaid, and the home mortgage interest deduction -- Mettler shows that 96 percent of adults have received benefits from at least one of them, and that the average person has utilized five. Overall usage rates transcend social, economic, and political divisions, and most Americans report positive experiences of their policy experiences. However, the fact that they have benefited from these policies has little positive effect on people’s attitudes toward government. Mettler finds that shared identities and group affiliations, as well as ideological forces, are more powerful and consistent influences. In particular, those who oppose welfare tend to extrapolate their unfavorable views of it to government in general. Deep antipathy toward the government has emerged as the result of a conservative movement that has waged a war on social welfare policies for over forty years, even as economic inequality and benefit use have increased. Mettler finds that voting patterns exacerbate the government-citizen disconnect, as those holding positive views of federal programs and supporting expanded benefits have lower rates of political participation than those holding more hostile views of the government. As a result, the loudest political voice belongs to those who have benefited from policies but who give government little credit for their economic well-being, seeing their success more as a matter of their own deservingness. This contributes to the election of politicians who advocate cutting federal social programs. According to Mettler, the government-citizen disconnect frays the bonds of representative government and democracy. The Government-Citizen Disconnect illuminates a paradox that increasingly shapes American politics. Mettler's examination of hostility toward government at a time when most Americans will at some point rely on the social benefits it provides helps us better understand the roots of today's fractious political climate.

Over the past three decades, the contours of American social, economic, and political life have changed dramatically. The post-war patterns of broadly distributed economic growth have given way to stark inequalities of income and wealth, the GOP and its allies have gained power and shifted U.S. politics rightward, and the role of government in the lives of Americans has changed fundamentally. Remaking America explores how these trends are related, investigating the complex interactions of economics, politics, and public policy. Remaking America explains how the broad restructuring of government policy has both reflected and propelled major shifts in the character of inequality and democracy in the United States. The contributors explore how recent political and policy changes affect not just the social standing of Americans but also the character of democratic citizenship in the United States today. Lawrence Jacobs shows how partisan politics, public opinion, and interest groups have shaped the evolution of Medicare, but also how Medicare itself restructured health politics in America. Kimberly Morgan explains how highly visible tax policies created an opportunity for conservatives to lead a grassroots tax revolt that ultimately eroded of the revenues needed for social-welfare programs. Deborah Stone explores how new policies have redefined participation in the labor force—as opposed to fulfilling family or civic obligations—as the central criterion of citizenship. Frances Fox Piven explains how low-income women remain creative and vital political actors in an era in which welfare programs increasingly subject them to stringent behavioral requirements and monitoring. Joshua Guetzkow and Bruce Western document the rise of mass incarceration in America and illuminate its unhealthy effects on state social-policy efforts and the civic status of African-American men. For many disadvantaged Americans who used to look to government as a source of opportunity and security, the state has become increasingly paternalistic and punitive. Far from standing alone, their experience reflects a broader set of political victories and policy revolutions that have fundamentally altered American democracy and society. Empirically grounded and theoretically informed, Remaking America connects the dots to provide insight into the remarkable social and political changes of the last three decades.

Busby explains how climate change can affect security outcomes, including violent conflict and humanitarian emergencies. Through case studies from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, the book develops a novel argument explaining why climate change leads to especially bad security outcomes in some places but not in others.

Adventure writing at its best, Submerged is the first book on the remarkable story of America's elite underwater archeology team. Daniel Lenihan recounts experiences from his 25 years as founder and head of the award-winning Submerged Cultural Resources Unit (SCRU) team of the U.S. National Park Service, world-class divers - talented archeologists, historians, and photographers charged with the mission of surveying, mapping, investigating, and protecting shipwrecks and sites that constitute America's sunken heritage. In Submerged, Lenihan takes the reader on a kaleidoscope of the team's underwater experiences from 1975 to the present - from Florida caves to ancient ruins covered by reservoirs in the desert southwest; to a WWII Japanese submarine off the Alaskan coast; to the lower rings of hell to retrieve the bodies of drowned divers; to gripping accounts of personal survival in underwater caves, ships, and submerged buildings.Displaying a passion for extreme diving combined with disciplined professionalism as park ranger-archeologists, the SCRU team tackles astonishing, often harrowing assignments, including; The Isle Royale shipwrecks; Surveying ten large ships sunk from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries in the middle of the frigid and deep Lake Superior. The USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor; Executing the largest mapping project ever conducted underwater, and his personal impressions as the first deep diver to explore and video the entire ship in 1983 Excavating the hull of the HL Hunley, the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship, in Charleston Harbor during the Civil War Resurveying of the ships sunk by atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll, including the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga and Japanese battleship Nagato With an aggressive preservation ethic, the team discovers and documents shipwrecks from Florida to Alaska, and even studies the haunts of pirates and prehistoric cultures in Micronesia.This engaging book, written with a mixture of wonder, intensity, pathos and humor, records for the first time the historic and social significance of the underwater research programs conducted by this fascinating unit of the U.S. National Park Service. Sure to delight anyone interested in diving, archeology, American history, adventure, and rescure missions, this fast-paced volume brings an entirely new perspective to the marvels of America's underwater treasures.

Greek mythology meets the New York City subway in SUBMERGED, where a sister descends into the underworld to save her brother as the biggest storm in history hits New York. A YALSA "GREAT GRAPHIC NOVEL FOR TEENS" List 2020 title THE BIGGEST STORM IN NEW YORK'S HISTORY IS BREWING. LET IT POUR. On the night of the biggest storm in New York City history, Elysia Puente gets a call from her estranged little brother Angel, terrified, begging for help. When the call cuts out suddenly, despite the bad feelings between them, Ellie rushes into the night. Finding his broken phone in front of a barricaded subway station, Ellie follows echoes of her brother into the sinister darkness of the underground, desperate to find him before it’s too late. As the flood waters rise, Elysia descends deeper and deeper into a mysterious and haunting underground in search of Angel. Collects the complete four issue series.

"Not just a brilliant restudy of one of anthropology's most famous 'peoples' but an exemplary historical ethnography that will be a landmark in the discipline. . . . With extraordinary sensitivity Hutchinson reveals how the Nuer have confronted the most profound moral, social, and political dilemmas of their—and our—changing world."—Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Writing Women's Worlds

The rapid growth of the discipline of aquatic ecology has been driven both by scientific interest in the complexities of aquatic ecosystems and by their enormous environmental importance and sensitivity. This book focuses on the remarkably diverse roles played by underwater plants, and is divided into three parts: 10 thematic chapters, followed by 18 case studies, and rounded off by three integrative chapters. The topics range from macrophytes as fish food to macrophytes as mollusc and microbe habitat, making this of interest to aquatic ecologists as well as limnologists, ecosystem ecologists, microbial ecologists, fish biologists, and environmental managers.